Webb's triathlon Olympic path detailed and official (per USAT)

pkfire wrote:

where's the results?

webb luckily got in to the Abu Dhabi wts a couple weeks ago (after a different athlete earned the spot and scratched and usat subbed him in) and was destroyed in the race 56th out of 59. his swim is nowhere close. top 8 at a wts? yeah right, our top guys would struggle to do that and webb is miles behind them. His only chance is if nobody qualifies outright and it's down to a one race deal and he ends up beating the remaining americans who weren't struck down by a freak gasoline fight accident.

here are the u.s. men that are better than him off the top of my head

shoemaker

maloy

lagerstrom

kanute

van ort

huerta

kemper

charbot

billington

pipe dream

Even Verzbicalifianakis is probably faster right now.

actually I have done about 20 triathlons and am well acquainted with them, I am not a pro but know and have trained with several over the years, most of them were geared more towards the ironman and half ironman events and not ITU sprints and olympics. but even if I knew nothing about tri why couldn't I comment on a public forum about what I think? why can't everyone? it is amazing and refreshing always that so many on letsrun when confronted with a different point of view have to discount and demean it, rather than argue it on merits or heaven forbid consider the possibility that the other point of view has some merit or might even be right.

I often wonder how many of the haters who attack and flame other points of view have spent their athletic careers listening to mommy tell them they are the best and special and right and the world is wrong and unfair. Guess what, when mommy said you are the best and just keep trying well she is right for mommyland. But in the real world you compete against people and ideas compete.

Mommy can't help you now.

So here goes: Webb lacks the speed in swimming and running to excel. He is competitive in USA only because the USA is not competitive on a world level. The Brownlees own this thing. Webb also lacks years of experience and training that means he concedes small edges in time and tactics which he cannot afford against the level of competition he is facing. Honestly what about any of Webb's tri performances or last 8 years of running performances, injury history, and training, and coaching make anyone think he is a strong candidate to excel???

I will root for Webb and any American to do well. But I will call it like it is, right now he does not look like a good bet to make the team let alone do well at the Olympics. If he was 5 years younger and had more time to develop in a specialized sport of 3 disciplines I would think differently.

I hope Webb makes me eat my words, but to me he is just hanging on tinkering around at tri because he no longer has the ability or desire to compete at running. My belief is he quit running - yes Q ... U....I ....T running. And because of that I think he will never succeed at tri because he has hung it up mentally already. He had a great career and deserves to hang up his shoes amid a lot of records and trophies. But the fire is gone. Gone.

So all you Webb lickers go ahead and listen to Mommy, her precious baby can't be wrong. But the man in your mirror lies and Mommy lied to you. You are wrong. And when Webb fails to make the team get out Mommy's bag of excuses. Webb ain't no excuse maker but his lickers sure are.

and to be clear yes I said Webb lacks the speed in swimming and RUNNING: he is fast but he can't outrun the other competitors right now. So he starts off behind after swimming, cycling at best is neutral, and he can't make it up on the run. GAME over. Tell me Webb is gonna get faster at the run??? Really?? If he could he would still be a pro runner. Something broke in Webb a while ago, physical or mental, but it broke and he is on a fade.

tri nonsense.. who cares. Webb is what people are interested, not you. sorry bub

There is not just one hill in Rio, there are two. The first is 0.7K with the second half at 10% - 18%. The second hill is about 15% for 250 metres. With 92 meters of vertical climbing per 5K lap, this is the toughest Olympic distance tri bike course in living memory. The ITU race in Madrid which was always the toughest (and the only time Jorgensen has not had the fastest run split) has only 55 meters.

The upshot is that there will be no "second pack", the entire field will be spread across the course, and if the Brownlees and Gomez come out of the swim in the front pack, there is no way anyone will catch up given how superior their biking is on hilly courses. I can't see Webb getting within 30 seconds of the top guys in a non-wetsuit continuous ocean swim, driven by Richard Varga, by which time it will be too late.

With no disrespect to Webb, I don't believe he has anywhere near the biking experience to cope on the Rio course (the Brownlees have been doing 18 hours a week on this sort of terrain, 52 weeks a year for the last decade). I think even Jorgenson will have problems ...

It should be clear, by reading and reading between the lines, what is being discussed.

Webb vs other Americans. That's it.

Speculating Webb winning a WTS, making the lead group in Rio or any other WTS event, then running down the WTS elite is a different topic. One for people who don't know anything about triathlon and Webb in triathlon...

You are welcome to make that post but you will not get any knowledgeable contributions from people who understand the sport and Webb in the sport.

well let me reiterate my previous post - webber won't make Rio.

Now this doesn't mean I don't have respect for Webb as an athlete, or think he is a failure for not being better at triathlon. But he just doesn't have the experience or swim or run speed to do it.

was the top american last week. fastest run too. anything else?

uh huh, you have a point. Last weekends results back your point. People who don't understand the sport and haven't seen recent results come off as factually impotent.

2015 Mooloolaba ITU World Cup

750m swim, 20k bike, 5k run

American Finishers

Elite Men - Complete Results

7. Alan Webb (Beaverton, Ore.), 55:39

11. Greg Billington (Colorado Springs, Colo.), 55:48

15. Kevin McDowell (Geneva, Ill.), 55:56

21. Sean Jefferson (Palisades, Calif.), 56:10

35. Ben Kanute (Geneva, Ill.), 56:38

56. Tommy Zaferes (Soquel, Calif.), 59:31

Data shows the power of non-factual bias means you are right, in your own mind.

Huerta??? Go back to posting drivel about running.

Huerta is a decent runner. I raced and beat him in a 5K road race and I've raced Alan Webb at XC Nationals.

They are on two different planets. Alan Webb is a true runner, a prodigy, a phenom. Huerta is a phenomenal, world-class Triathlete with good running ability, but nowhere near as fluid or powerful, nowhere in the class of Brownlee or Gomez.

I love how everyone underestimates Webb. Those of us that raced him know his potential, even at this age (look at Ritz/Teg success).

Webb's improving. He has got a shot if Americans are so weak that it is unlikely they can even get a top 8 finish at a circuit race. Too slow on the run? I don't think his last results suggest that at all. The easier the bike is (drafting), the faster the run can be. As for whether he's done anything in the last 8 years, you'll recall that that time period includes his world leading 1500m time of 3:30 and the fastest time in the mile in the last ten years or so, 3:46.9, as well as 1:43.8. Unfortunately for Webb, those times were all more than 7 years ago. Nevertheless, he's still fast enough to challenge any of the top Americans in the run.

Huerta races for Puerto Rico now:

http://www.triathlon.org/athletes/profile/manuel_huerta

uh huhhh wrote:

was the top american last week. fastest run too. anything else?

If you think that means something, you don't know the sport. And he didn't have the fastest run - unless you mean of Americans.

Remind me of this thread again in 2016.

jjjjjjj wrote:

Too slow on the run? I don't think his last results suggest that at all. The easier the bike is (drafting), the faster the run can be. As for whether he's done anything in the last 8 years, you'll recall that that time period includes his world leading 1500m time of 3:30 and the fastest time in the mile in the last ten years or so, 3:46.9, as well as 1:43.8. Unfortunately for Webb, those times were all more than 7 years ago. Nevertheless, he's still fast enough to challenge any of the top Americans in the run.

He needs to be Gwen Jorgensen fast as compared to the field if he is to make up for his poor swim and relatively slow bike. He isn't that fast.

He is going to work a lot harder than most of the front pack to hang on in the swim. If he makes the first draft pack on the bike, he will also be working harder than many of the bikers in the group, and since we will be at the back of the bike pack, he will then have to find a minute or two to put on the lead biker/runners - all while he is more tired than they are.

I haven't seen him do anything lately that suggests this is possible in the next year.

The 411 on Tri Webb wrote:

3. Next shot: A race TBD. and unlike the others, they'll probably take the top two or three outright (as USAT has not specified a top 8 place requirement).

That's not quite correct. There's a link to the full criteria here:

While the details of the final selection event haven't been finalized, the criteria say that to get an auto spot, you must place top three (if it's a WTS event or a World Cup event with a field quality rating of 16% or higher) or win it (if it's a lesser quality World Cup event or a Continental Cup).

That means it's entirely possible the team won't be filled up with auto spots. If that happens, the team be selected based on points earned at five races: Rio, Stockholm, Edmonton, Chicago, and the 2016 TBD race. Only the points you earn at your best two of these races will count.

hold the phone, you are right. and there is a selection committee as well. it is, by far, utterly convoluted... lets hope we get some auto qualifiers to avoid the mess. quality of the field reqs. (top 3) at the other races will be VERY hard to get autos at those races. races will be stacked for the same reason the US is using them. Its possible up to 2 spots will be by committee and/or points from selection races..

You clearly aren't well acquainted with triathlons if you ask completely moronic questions like "does triathlon actually have fans????" and " has anyone ever bought a ticket to watch triathlon".

You also are right that you are 100% allowed to anonymously post on internet message boards your completely idiotic commentary. Maybe it makes you feel better. I don't know. However, you also should be aware that when you do so you very will be attacked as being the fool you are. Moreover, asking stupid questions like the ones i listed above hardly qualifies as presenting a "different point of view." It's nothing more than adding to the cesspool that many parts of the internet have become. The fact that you think that posting such questions qualifies as a "different point of view" speaks volumes as to how out to lunch you are.

You also complete fail in your attempt in your latest post to add some substance to your posts. The Brownlees do not "own thing thing." They aren't even the best triathletes in the world right now -- that would be Gomez. The fact that you don't know who the world champion is again speaks volumes. Webb also isn't "tinkering" with triathlons. He's a full-time professional triathlete who even has moved his family to a new location in order to better pursue this. It's beyond comical that you would belittle someone who has dedicated his entire professional life to something for over a year now as merely "tinkering."

Lastly, you might want to refrain from your "Mommy" references going forward. It's creepy and really does nothing to make you look less clueless than you really are.

You left out one key detail. The Rio race and Chicago race will not both just be an open entry. It used to be that only 75 athletes were admitted to these races (might be less now). Thus it is somewhat unlikely that anyone ranked outside of the top 100 will race in Rio (as you pointed out it's a lot of other countries qualifier and will be a very popular race).

A seventh at Mooloolaba (which is a challenging course) is a good result for Alan, and I think he's got a good shot at making it.

The US men have really slipped the last 5-8 years. So the competition isn't as steep as it used to be.

And webb is now sitting at 159th place. But a few more decent results and he'll shoot up the ranking.

I'd put Alan on pretty good odds to make the team. (They are likely to only get two slots next year, right?).