Alan Webb 3.5 hours from first world cup (abu dhabi) start, listen free online

"Can't keep it in anymore...excited to share that @runteamwebb and I are expecting our second child. #perspective "

World Cup Web wrote:

As another data point, Alan's bike split was 1 second slower than the winning woman's.

Interesting to compare him to the women.

Let's say he pulled a Bruce Jenner...

He would have come out of the water in the lead (by 6 seconds)

He would have then lost 1 second on T1 (the top woman out of the water did it in 35 seconds). So he would have been 5 seconds ahead of her.

His bike would have been comparable to the top swimmer. She biked 1 second slower than Alan. In reality, he would have been caught by the group and actually would have been a few seconds faster than her. Btw: the top woman swimmer ended up finishing 19th overall.

However, he would have won the race, since his run was the fastest of the whole women field.

I feel that he should be figuring out a way to earn a living other than athletics.

"I wish Alan luck but it does not look good for him. It might be different if he was picking up 30 - 45 seconds over everyone on the run. In other words, stay in swim pack, stay in bike pack, hope leaders do not have sizable lead, and catch em on the run. But right now all 4 of those things are off the table."

this is a garbage response. the question is what are his chances for the Olympic team. not what are his chances to win the olympics. you are answering the latter, not the question posed by co-founder.

Alan can run with all the americans NOW. he cant swim with them. it will take a solid swim to make the last group out of the water, something he can do NOW, and favorable race conditions on the bike, where all the packs come together as one by the finish. bikes are getting faster at the front but back packs are too. evolution of the sport. if this unfolds at oly trials, alan can make the team if his rank is high enough then and there are 3 spots, not just two. perhaps maybe even with just two spots. look at 12' manny huerta over shoemaker. it can happen on the day.

his learning curve has not even begun yet frankly. no one knows what he can do. he is no where near becoming asymptotic, learning curve wise, because he has not raced enough full oly races, helmet mistake free, and bad swim free. the next two weekends will be very telling and other WTS races he is placed at this year. USAT coaching staff like what they see. and when it comes to tris and olympics, there is no pecking order for the americans. not yet anyway. maybe this year someone will rise up. its what you got on the day at trials. USAT has a shotgun approach at this level. throw up a group of contenders and see what sticks when it counts. this is because we don't have a consistent racer near the top. we have a lot of what ifs and alan is squarely in that group with everyone else right now.

LV is done. his back is messed and he needed full normal health for his swim to come along. he was already having difficulty getting his swim faster before the accident. I am a Duck so I love joiquim cruz but as a tri coach for LV? it's a sign they are grasping at straws although he does have proper tri coaches too. I really hope I eat these words later because LV was such a talent.. and he was absolutely ready to explode on the world stage when the accident happened. like the worst possible time.

bullpucky try again wrote:

this is a garbage response. the question is what are his chances for the Olympic team. not what are his chances to win the olympics.

yeah, 'cause every athlete lower than 3rd place just needs to quite immediately. why bother of only the top are gonna make it the big oly show?

I remember parades. he did coors light duathlon series back when liz dowing and ken souza were royalty. paredes never won major races but he was an excellent runner, not in multi-sport though. he only split times equal to the other top runners of that old 5k - 30k - 5k format. brent steiner, joel thompson, michael tobin, souza were running with him and out biking him. and paredes could not bike. he really was a one trick pony.

he was not the simon lessing dominance runner in multisport. Lessing was out splitting people by minutes. he was what gwen jorgensen is now for the women. 92. 96, 98 world titles specifically. just gone, outta sight, outta mind

I trained a bit with greg whitely, who was doing what alan is trying to do now. whitely was a miler in college (Brown), ran oly trials for 1500 and was the american road 5k holder in 92 or 93? (13:25) post college. then switched to tris at which point we were swim training together. he never got his swim down as a pro triathlete which was a shame. he was ready to kill the run but his swim was worse than webb's.

Is there an Olympic Trials race for Triathlon? And top 2 or 3 make the team or is it a points thing over the year?

Are ITU races on TV in the States?

This seems like a good analysis. I worry about how Webb will do at the Olympic Distance, though. I was looking around and it seems he's only done a handful of these. This is a guy who was at his best from less than 2 to less than 4 minutes of racing. I'm rooting for him, but I think we all need to keep in mind how big a difference there is between Olympic Triathlon and Olympic 1500 meters.

Link wrote:

This seems like a good analysis. I worry about how Webb will do at the Olympic Distance, though. I was looking around and it seems he's only done a handful of these. This is a guy who was at his best from less than 2 to less than 4 minutes of racing. I'm rooting for him, but I think we all need to keep in mind how big a difference there is between Olympic Triathlon and Olympic 1500 meters.

Something you should keep in mind is how Webb's open 10k PB is more than a minute faster than Alistair Brownlee's.

Dewey_Runner wrote:

Something you should keep in mind is how Webb's open 10k PB is more than a minute faster than Alistair Brownlee's.

So what? That was a lifetime ago.

Webb has maybe 2-3 years to get better, or maybe less. He's 32. He isn't going to run much faster. He can get better on the swim. He can get better on the bike. But really, by 35, he's going to be done. He's more like a 40 year old already anyway. And he's been training hard for 15+ years already.

No, he won't make the Olympic team. He'll be a serviceable guy in any local race, but he's going to continue to get creamed at the international level.

He's making mental mistakes. Eerily reminiscent of too many races on the track.

Good Grief wrote:

He's 32. He isn't going to run much faster.

Mo Farah will be 32 in a few weeks. Do you think Mo has reached his faster limit?

wejo wrote:

Are ITU races on TV in the States?

ITU races are all available live on the web with very good analysis and camera views (not like the online track races)

Web coverage is obviously the future of niche sports.

What should be available is a bundle programs. For example, the Diamond League, ITU triathlon, X Country skiing, swimming... On one web channel, with one monthly fee (or 1 day subscriptions). Maybe even bundle in the low quality stuff too (float rack stuff...), as sometimes you are just happy to see it... Although, I would like the low quality stuff to be free and just finance it through targeted advertising...

Mo @ 32 wrote:

Good Grief wrote:

He's 32. He isn't going to run much faster.

Mo Farah will be 32 in a few weeks. Do you think Mo has reached his faster limit?

Farah didn´t set his PS´s ages ago...

well,. wrote:

Mo @ 32 wrote:

Mo Farah will be 32 in a few weeks. Do you think Mo has reached his faster limit?

Farah didn´t set his PS´s ages ago...

Ever heard of Bernard Lagat, or Haile G.?

ITU races are on Universal Sports.

I'm pretty sure the selection process for the Olympics will be similar to what USA Triathlon did in 2012. An athlete collects points by doing the various ITU triathlons (the different levels - WTS, World Cup, and Continental Cup offer varying amounts of points) and you are ranked according to your accumulated points. There are usually 65 places available in a race and the ITU accepts athletes into the races bases on their points ranking with a maximum of 6 athletes per country (6 men and 6 women). The host country can add a couple more athletes if the 65 cap is not reached. USA Triathlon then selects a race (their version of a "trials"), and most probably a WTS race, and a US athlete must finish in the top 8 to automatically qualify. At most 2 athletes in the race can qualify this way. The third athlete (if the US is eligible to have 3 athletes, which is a different qualifying process) can be chosen by USA Triathlon (as long as they have enough ITU points). This way they ensure that a top athlete is not left at home, if they don't qualify, or they can select someone to be a domestique for a top athlete( which will probably happen on the women's side).

I answered the question on chances to make the Olympic team. You may disagree with my answer, and my answer may be wrong but it is hardly a garbage response just because you do not like it.

Yes Alan could improve and have the race of his life. So could his competitors.

Alan could also chase ITU points in races but would be burnt out by the process likely. Maybe his history of overtraining and mistiming peaks will be helpful in such an effort meaning he has learned from it.

Right now Alan is slow at swim bike and at run off bike. Alan lacks tactical experience and experience of how his body can perform in tri races and tri training. Again kudos to Alan. I am rooting for him. But there are realities to sport. One is that his competition is working just as hard and another is that whether Alan can whoop them at 1500 or 5k straight up is irrelevant

We can play the what if game all day.

Good luck to Alan and all the competitors.

what's drug testing like in the triathlon?

your position is not accurate based on recent TRIATHLON RESULTS (see 2014 Tongyeong) and your bias is apparent because you are clinging to what can alan do in a straight 1500 / 5k but trying to pawn it off by saying others here are using that as a gauge for triathlon comparison. no, only you are.

first, we are talking about triathlon running only so drop the bs. the realities are he ran 15:04 after tt'ing the bike mostly solo. what is 15:04 worth in that race if he was with the main group? 10th - 20th place and the top american. and the top american to boot. now, how about with better legs off the bike, surrounded by guys running that fast or faster? certainly would have been under 15:00. getting the point?

what ifs are interesting when they are factual aren't they. I am happy you want alan to do well, we all do. but your analysis is still garbage.

i still think his swim is better than where his tri swims have shown so far.

all he needs is a rank of 140 in the next year then a great trials race. this is not a big ask for someone who is already a top american triathlon runner (not the top, yet). maloy can run as good. none of the americans are top international triathlon runners. correct.

in the 2012 triathlon oly trials, manny huerta beat out the two heavy favorites, matt chrabot and jared shoemaker, to make the team. (actually so did kemper). chrabot and shoemaker were ranked much higher and had a great run ups to trials... so much for ranking. so much for what if's.

huerta and kemper got the spots over the two favorites...and manny was a terrible swimmer as well. at the trials race he was near the back out of the water, but had a good swim (for him) so he was safe. on that day, he was a big what if.

abu dhabi race video is up now..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pEuXygCWBc

alan had to run through transition with his bike, as the video shows the bike mount line was at the mola / gomez end. the lowest ranked athletes were at the opposite end. didn't help after bungling with his helmet strap..