Lance does well at St. Croix

I would love to cheer for LA - like his tour performances, like his book, love the post cycling ferocity, like the comeback, like the charity, love that he is doing this at age 40...but I just don't believe a top cyclist won the tour x number of times clean. It just isn't believable.

So I can't really cheer for him.

That said, I am sure he is clean now - he is not so stupid to wreck his legacy on the afterparty.

This is the shame - that cycling is so f'd up that I can't even cheer for its greatest recent champion when he does something tremendous like this.

Competition in triathlon is super weird, so as a runner that had a tri friend explain it to me I will try to explain it back...

One of the cool things about a road race is everyone is racing on equal footing. In theory, any joe can toe the line against the best in the world and see how they match up. Now you might try to get me on technicalities like chip time/gun time, separate elite starts, etc., but for the most part it's one big race. This is NOT how triathlons are set up.

In Ironman Tris, everyone is in an age bucket and they compete ONLY against people in the same bucket. I think the buckets are divided by gender and every 5 years, you you have 30-34M, 25-29F, so on and so forth. There are only like 5 or 6 Ironmans a year in America (that is, the full distance and sposered by the Ironman people). In addition, there are 10-20ish Half Ironmans. At each Ironman and Half Ironman, the top X spots in EACH BUCKET get invites to Kona. I think X depends on how many competitors there are in the race, and in a given race it varies by bucket.

Now, all that applies ONLY TO AMATEURS. There are two more totally separate divisions in triathon: male pro and female pro. Pros do not get counted in age group results and likewise amateurs CANNOT get counted amoung the pros. So for example, if the top pro runs 3:40 at the Whatever Half Ironman and supertalent Average Joe signs up and does 3:20, he gets jack diddly in the way of prize money and isn't really even considered the winner of the race (I don't think this really ever happens, although it might be the case that the top amateur beats some of the pros that get prize money).

Now, becoming a pro isn't as simple as you might think. You don't just email the race director and say you want to be pro, you have to be a certified pro by (I think) USAT. In order to do that, you have to perform well in a whole bunch of races as an amateur. I guess qualifying for Kona is different for pros and amateurs: amateurs need one good finish at any Ironman. Pros need to accumulate points with a number of high finishes in a certain time period. I assume Lance is a pro and would not want an age group slot, and I have no idea where he stands in qualification.

The last thing I'll say is the only tri I've spectated was a Half Ironman and it had a wave start, so first the pros would go. Then some time later, a whole age bucket would start and then every 5 minutes a new age bucket would go until everyone had started. So literally you were only competing against your bucket because everyone else had different start times. I think some races do have mass starts, although there might be a separate pro start (no idea).

Are you sure you don't mean bracket?

While you are competing against the people of your age-group in many of the races, the full Ironman races typically have a mass start. Also to the person who said Lance is running 1:18's, he only ran that at his first one. They messed up the times at first at st. croix and he ended up running only a 1:25. Yes it was a tough run course, but that still will have to get a bit faster if he's going to try and be competitive against the elite runners of the sport.

The process of qualifying for Kona for age groupers and professionals is very different. The pros have to race atleast one WTC ironman and get points based on placement. The half-ironmans contribute to the points as well, but they still have to race atleast one full of theirs. It truly is just a way to control the athletes and get more out of them. A top pro triathlete will only want to race one or two Ironmans a year leading up to Kona, and since they now have to race a official WTC one, it will draw them away from the "off-brand" ones. Just a moneymaking scheme.

Qualifying for age-groupers is just as the brobrius strip said. Every age group(with increments of 5 yrs) has one or two slots for Kona(depending on how many race that day). If there is only one slot, the first person can take it. But if he declines, it rolls down the age group until it is claimed.

And about Lance... Course was perfect for him yesterday. Very technical bike with the rain and tricky descents, and lots of climbing. Everything was in his favor but still couldn't pull it out. We'll see how he does later.

Same word. Sorry if bracket is the technical tri term or something. We use bucket a lot at work when talking about age groupings. Also use age band sometimes.

Keith Stone has it exactly correct. the USAT clowns are the most officious group of nitwits I have run across in all sorts of sports. I contribute the $40 or so bucks for a license only because I need it to get into some of my favorite tri's..

One of the run ins I had w/ them I forgot to bring my license to packet pickup once(no I don't carry it in my wallet) and the USAT Guy there said I would have to purchase a 'day' license. Someone had a laptop in line with them so we looked it up on the USAT site to show proof.

The USAT clown said (and I quote) "ok, we'll let it go THIS time"

"Every age group(with increments of 5 yrs) has one or two slots for Kona(depending on how many race that day). "

Every age-group starts with one gauranteed slot. Then the remainder of the slots a race has are divvied out by percentage of age-group per registered entrants. Larger the age-group the more slots it gets from the remainder.

Our club had an older lady racing Buffalo Springs and she was the only participant in her AG. All she had to do was finish inside the cut-off and off to Hawaii she'd go. She finished but missed the cut-off. Not sure how the slot for Kona was handled in that instance.

I want to clarify on Kona qualifying...seeing as how I'm an age grouper trying to qualify for Kona at IM Texas in less than 2 wks. Age-groupers can ONLY qualify Kona at full Ironman events (140.6, not 70.3). Each Ironman event has a designated number of Kona slots that are divided up amongst the age groups. All official Ironman 70.3 events also have similar qualifying slots, but those are for the 70.3 world championships in Vegas each year. Maybe pros can use 70.3s to qualify for Kona, but age groupers can't - 70.3s qualify for Vegas, 140.6s qualify for Kona. Hope this clarifies things.

runner doing tris wrote:

I want to clarify on Kona qualifying...seeing as how I'm an age grouper trying to qualify for Kona at IM Texas in less than 2 wks. Age-groupers can ONLY qualify Kona at full Ironman events (140.6, not 70.3). Each Ironman event has a designated number of Kona slots that are divided up amongst the age groups. All official Ironman 70.3 events also have similar qualifying slots, but those are for the 70.3 world championships in Vegas each year. Maybe pros can use 70.3s to qualify for Kona, but age groupers can't - 70.3s qualify for Vegas, 140.6s qualify for Kona. Hope this clarifies things.

In the past (last year or two?) weren't there Kona slots given out at some 70.3 races?

Which Ironman 70.3 events are qualifiers for the 2012 Ironman World Championship?

2011 Ironman 70.3 Asia-Pacific Championship

2012 Ironman 70.3 St. Croix

2012 Ironman 70.3 Hawaii

2012 Ironman 70.3 Eagleman

2012 Ironman 70.3 Buffalo Springs Lake

2012 Ironman 70.3 Centrair Tokoname Japan

2012 Ironman 70.3 Antwerp (Three Hand Cycle slots only)

this is quite the moronic post. have you even watched a tri (nevermind done one)? 95% of the penalties are handed out on the bike and most of them either are for drafting or safety violations. if you race cleanly, then you want the drafters nailed. do you get just as chaffed when you are watching a football game and an offensive lineman gets called for holding?

trimando wrote:Also to the person who said Lance is running 1:18's, he only ran that at his first one. They messed up the times at first at st. croix and he ended up running only a 1:25. Yes it was a tough run course, but that still will have to get a bit faster if he's going to try and be competitive against the elite runners of the sport

This. And the run portion was over a half mile short in Panama. He has yet to run to run sub 1:21 off the bike. Judging from his runs on Strava, it looks like he could probably go sub 1:15 in an open half when fresh. That's maybe 2:36-2:38 open marathon shape. And that's 2:50+ at the end of an Ironman.

So, what he's doing is very impressive for a 40 year old, but I just don't think he's capable of beating the best in the sport.

no Kenyans

just rich white guys

fgfg wrote:

no Kenyans

just rich white guys

If the only two international caliber swimmers from Kenya were white guys who happen to have the same parents would it be genetic?

Non explainer wrote:

I used to think the worst part

of triathlons were the outfits and the fact time spent changing

counted!.

Well of course. If time between sections didn't count, an athlete might take a long rest between sections to recover before continuing

Don't you realize that the top guys racing in Kona are pushing 40?

buffet rule not wrote:

this is quite the moronic post. have you even watched a tri (nevermind done one)? 95% of the penalties are handed out on the bike and most of them either are for drafting or safety violations. if you race cleanly, then you want the drafters nailed. do you get just as chaffed when you are watching a football game and an offensive lineman gets called for holding?

if you'd passed reading comprehension it would be clear I've done several. If you paid any attention to real competition you'd know 95% of the penalties are random and petty and have little to do with real safety concerns or actual cheating. Any real triathlete competitor knows the rules are BS, and when the rules become more important than the real competition the sport starts to become BS too. Yes, most of them are on the bike handed out by fat nitwits looking to ding people they don't like for random reasons to justify their existence. I mean really, you look at the penalty list and they're looking for x penalties for a sprint and y for an Olympic, they find them and head back for some donuts.

wow. you've done several. you sound like a vet. i'm glad that you have proclaimed yourself as being a "real" triathlete (i wouldn't want anyone to confuse you with a fake one).

believing that 95% of the penalties on the bike are "random" shows how clueless you are. there's a thing called a rulebook and people are violating them. BIG TIME. you clearly have not done an ironman (and i gather not a HM either) because i have seen massive drafting going on in every one i have done and they could have bumped the penalties up 10x and it still wouldn't have covered all of the infractions. when you step it up and do a "real" triathlon (or at least watch), you will see that most of the penalties aren't littering penalties. until then, you might want to spare all of us your malarkey on the tri threads.

ronner wrote:

What I want to know is what drug testing is going on with Lance?

\"30 Apr Lance Armstrong ‏ @lancearmstrong

Spending a little quality time with the fine folks from @usantidoping. Surprise control - blood and urine."