Colleen Quigley to Triathlon?

Most US former runners that made it to elite level in triathlon got started with coach Paulo. Someone needs to send Colleen to him or she'll never make it.

That means she's not fast enough in the swim, bike or both. Based on her swim times, it's probably the swim. Short course is not forgiving with the swim because you have to make to the bike in a pack so you can draft.

Can we still call her Steeple Squigs?

No story to begin with for Sodaro. No "end of story" either.

Sodaro has a running background but never made it in the draft legal / ITU format. She was relegated (by USAT) to lesser, regional world cups, which offer much less ranking points than the WTS series (highest level for tris). USAT had many other better women, who were also faster runners than Sodaro, when Sodaro was trying the Oly route. Sodaro never got called up (by USAT) to the big leagues, so to speak.

Only Morgan Pearson has made the Olympics (for america) coming from a professional running background.

Olympics (Quigley) is not the same as IM/70.3 (Sodaro)

Mostly accurate, but some courses are VERY hilly and relative power (kg / watts) is a factor. Rio Olympics comes to mind. Bermuda WTS also. Many world cups are very hilly too and Quigley would cut her teeth their first, if she ever gets past continental cup level racing. If she has good power profiles on strava, like some here claim, she'd be smart to find hilly world cups to better her chances.

But I would agree with you overall, she will need absolute power ("total raw") to assure herself of not getting dropped anywhere and everywhere in draft legal tris. There are many heavier ITU racers who don't have good power to weight ratios (relative power) and are heavy but who climb with the best and smallest riders on hilly courses because 1. their absolute power is insane and 2. tri circuits repeat smaller power climbs.

Draft legal tris are not TDF / grand tour level climbs that take 45 minutes where the heavier riders have no chance and start to pop off after 10 - 20 minutes of climbing.

The bigger danger for Quigley (and all smaller riders) is not generating ENOUGH raw power, and at the RIGHT times, especially at the bike start when packs are forming. She will go backwards getting passed by wattage horses if she can get the big guns out for the first couple minutes of the bike, when she's already up to her eyes in lactate and can't see straight.

ITU racing at the WTS level is gut check stuff, especially during and just after T1 for the first minutes of the bike. Head down, nose to stem, dripping wet, blasting yourself, trying to hold a wheel, if you are lucky enough to be around any.

It's where balls and ovaries of steel are required.

Didn't realize her training is pretty public on Strava. 20 hours last week -- that's pretty all-in on triathlon. I agree that I wouldn't judge cycling by her climbing ability. She should be good at climbing as a lighter rider. I think biking will come naturally with her running background. Bike skills will take time to learn. None of it matters if she doesn't have the swim take out speed. It's very possible that she does well at triathlon. Will take a few years to find out. She should be one of the fastest runners in the sport. She probably has the fastest PBs out of anyone to ever compete in the sport.

Scratch everything that's been said about Olympics and Quigley.

Just checked her IG to see what kinda sets she's doing in the pool. She has one post from September "learning to swim".

Her biggest challenge is the swim. She has no experience and is totally new. She will never make an olympic team for triathlon.

Non-drafting triathlon success, who knows? But best of luck pushing that power on the bike, on the flats.

Swimming is so much harder than cycling to pick up. And there are bunches of girls in the tri pipeline for LA 2028' that swim very well. I'm sure they (USAT) said to Quigly, get your swim up to snuff then we will talk. They have time standards for candidates to join their Olympic track program, yet she can barely swim. Here are the time standards for swim / bike /run

https://www.teamusa.org/usa-triathlon/elite/talent-id/program-description-and-time-standards

She needs to swim a 500 yard freestyle in 6:00 to hit the SLOWEST metric possible for consideration to even join the olympic development program (no funding potential, no sponsor potential, and almost no racing potential. Just free training facilities if at OTC in the Springs or Chula Vista). The next mark she needs is 5:33 / 500yd free to start to get USAT to enter her into some races and also to be competitive to make a bike pack after the swim and get points to start to qualify for an olympics.

What is swimming a 6:00 and 5:33 500yd free in running speak?

Swimming a 6:00 500yd free would be like a female running a 5:10 mile. Not an elite female runner running 5:10 but a hobby jogger that has never done track workouts or sets turning up and running 5:10, because Quigley can barely swim. That would be hard for a elite level swimmer or cyclist to show up to a track and pull off.

A 5:33 500 yard free would be that same hobby jogger running a 4:50 - 4:55 mile, with no formal running background or practices. Someone who can barely run, like Quigley can barely swim.

There are no conversions between the sports but you get the point. And swimming so much harder than that example. They are not the same because everyone can already BASICALLY run. Swimming takes years of drill work to develop technique that non-swimmers have no idea about. Running does not require years of drill work to learn to run efficiently.

It's impossibly difficult, learning to swim. It's all technique and 'feel for the water' FIRST, that takes years of consistent daily swimming to 'get a feel for' and keep. This is before the aerobic / anaerobic pace work really comes into play.

Matt McElroy took 2 -3 years to learn to swim just to make groups on the bike out of the water but he had a surfing background and basic water awareness and understanding. A head start over a complete newb like Quigly. He has not made the Olympics after years of swimming.

Morgan Pearson swam in high school and was a life guard before running at CU. He was a strong swimmer very quickly at the top level of triathlon, much faster than McElroy. He medaled in Tokyo.

Given USAT recruits D1 level female swimmers directly into their Olympic triathlon pipeline (because it is the most important aspect initially), Quigley has zero chance.

I'm out. Have fun with this waste of time...

I hear you, I have raced bikes and feet. I m going to say anyone as elite as her in MD running, is going to be fine with those "wattage horses" in no time flat. She isnt an average Joe. (If she was joining the pro peloton I might not say no time flat) Todays MD elite even do a good bit of off-track weights. Elite MD runner to cycling in Tri? Ill take that bet.

This is spot on. Like I said before, biking is not the problem, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she’ll be quite good on the bike. The swim, however, will be incredibly difficult for her to become even remotely fast enough to even hang on to the back swim pack, it’s just way too technical of a sport that takes years to master.

That's not exactly correct. Winning WC races, which is what she did in her last ITU race, is not exactly "never making it" as you want to believe. Had she stuck to ITU, she no doubt would have been "called" up to WTCS races as she already was ahead of Erika Ackerland in 2018 when she beat her en route to winning he Huatulco WC and Erika now is a constant on the WTCS start lists. You also seem to be confused with WC and conti cup races -- conti cups are the regional ones and WC have much stronger fields than mere regional races.

You are completely wrong that USAT had faster runners than Sodaro who started racing tris with 15:10/32:05 PBs. NO american woman who has competed in ITU races has had PBs that fast. NONE.

I do agree that CQ has a monumental hill to overcome -- the swim -- in order to be competitive in WTCS races and that she probably has less than a 1% chance of doing that. However, Sodaro's career switch should give her a blueprint to switch to 70.3s and I think she could have a very successful career racing them (much like Sodaro has) because the swim plays such a smaller role in them.

Thank you for sprinkling some facts in with some fiction.

Suddenly, Mary Cain seems pretty good at triathlons.

In that post, she didn't mean she is *just now* learning to swim. She said "learning to swim as an adult..." meaning she's reflecting on *when* she started. She has been an adult and swimming for a while now.

The oldest IG post with her swimming is from 2017 and she said she had already been swimming for a couple of years at that point.

Yes, you can't draft, but you have to control a TT bike (LV), and be able to hold power in a TT position. This isn't just plug-play for a runner. The transition is not as easy as it appears.

It's painful how clueless you are. Please shut up.

Or does she go the Elle PSP route and start a family, or go the Sara Hall/Shalane route and adopt later in life.

There are very, very few people who can become good enough swimmers if they weren't doing age group swimming as a kid. Guys like Pearson were swimmers before becoming runners and then triathletes.

Maybe it is just chance that the odds of someone being a good swimmer is low (especially if you have the body of a distance guy) but it might also be a skill that is hard to learn as an adult. You see that in a lot of skill sports where the difference between the kids who played as kids and who picked it up at 30 is pretty noticeable...

Ever heard of Ryan Bolton? He was one of the first Americans to compete in the Olympic Triathlon and was an All American runner at the University of Wyoming.

She doesn't have the body of a distance guy. She doesn't have the body of a pro swimmer either, but neither does Gwen Jorgensen. This is triathlon, not pure swimming. The freestyle/crawl is the easiest skill to learn when it comes to swimming.