Congrats to Super Triathletes

R R said:

Congratulations to Seth Wealing and Susie Gallucci, the top U.S. finishers at the ITU World Cup
in England. How would you rate the ITU among the top Triathlon events, ie: the Pan American
Games etc...

ITU doesn't rate at all, since draftathon isn't triathlon.

It also makes for some pretty boring TV...oh, here they are in the water, now a few guys are getting
out in front. Here comes the pack, about 20km in the bike they become one big giant pack again. The
former leaders are now irrelevent. And now we see the run where a couple guys pull away.

Once in a blue moon the breakaway group maintains a lead of a minute or two, and sometimes that's
enough to make up for having worked harder on the bike than the run specialist who sat in the back
of the pack.

Exciting was the 2002 Alcatraz race, where Craig Walton was leading on the bike till he got hit with
a nasty muscle cramp towards the top of the Cliff House climb, fell over. Then Greg Bennent had a
commanding lead until the last 2 miles of flat running when he suffered one of the most spectacular
bonks ever and staggered in at 18th place. And Jones motored up the Sand Ladder to take over the
women's race to win her 7th straight.

In contrast, I've seen a half dozen ITU broadcasts on OLN this year and can't recall a single
remarkable event.
--
Jason O'Rourke www.jor.com

(Jason O'Rourke) said:

R R said:

Congratulations to Seth Wealing and Susie Gallucci, the top U.S. finishers at the ITU World Cup
in England. How would you rate the ITU among the top Triathlon events, ie: the Pan American
Games etc...

ITU doesn't rate at all, since draftathon isn't triathlon.

It also makes for some pretty boring TV...oh, here they are in the water, now a few guys are
getting out in front. Here comes the pack, about 20km in the bike they become one big giant pack
again. The former leaders are now irrelevent. And now we see the run where a couple guys pull away.

Once in a blue moon the breakaway group maintains a lead of a minute or two, and sometimes that's
enough to make up for having worked harder on the bike than the run specialist who sat in the back
of the pack.

Exciting was the 2002 Alcatraz race, where Craig Walton was leading on the bike till he got hit
with a nasty muscle cramp towards the top of the Cliff House climb, fell over. Then Greg Bennent
had a commanding lead until the last 2 miles of flat running when he suffered one of the most
spectacular bonks ever and staggered in at 18th place. And Jones motored up the Sand Ladder to take
over the women's race to win her 7th straight.

In contrast, I've seen a half dozen ITU broadcasts on OLN this year and can't recall a single
remarkable event.
--
Jason O'Rourke www.jor.com

Ok Jason let me see if I got this right. You don't like drafting triathlons.

~Matt

In article said:

Ok Jason let me see if I got this right. You don't like drafting triathlons.

I merely disliked draftathons until watching the ITU broadcasts. Now I hate them. And I'm all for
Wagner's proposal for arming officials with shotguns for the offenders on the bike leg.

--
Jason O'Rourke www.jor.com

Spammer.

Your book probably stinks and it's not selling, so you spam it all over the usenet, right?

Subsonic

On Thu, 7 Aug 2003 15:44:39 -0400, "R R" <[email hidden]> wrote:,

Quoted message said:

Congratulations to Seth Wealing and Susie Gallucci, the top U.S. finishers at the ITU World Cup
in England. How would you rate the ITU among the top Triathlon events, ie: the Pan American
Games etc...

Hope to catch a rerun on television,

Cheers,

Remo Rosati, author DIVINE INTERVENTION geocities.comnewnovelannOpen ↗

s

I'm surprised Ken papai hasn't post a message telling this guy to post at rec.sports.triathlon. He
seems to be focusing all his energy on my posts.

"R R" <[email hidden]> wrote in message "]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Congratulations to Seth Wealing and Susie Gallucci, the top U.S. finishers at the ITU World Cup
in England. How would you rate the ITU among the top Triathlon events, ie: the Pan American
Games etc...

Hope to catch a rerun on television,

Cheers,

Remo Rosati, author DIVINE INTERVENTION geocities.comnewnovelannOpen ↗

"R R" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

Congratulations to Seth Wealing and Susie Gallucci,

Good. Maybe Susie would like to be a quadathelete. The forth sport would be sucking on my ding dong.

Henry

MJuric said:

Ok Jason let me see if I got this right. You don't like drafting triathlons.

No [censored], Sherlock. And why should he? A drafting triathlon defeats the purpose of the central
concept of the sport - to determine the fastest competitor in 3 *individual* events. If the bike leg
isn't a TT, then the swim and bike legs become mere warmups for a foot race. What a waste of time
and energy. --dt

"R R" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

Congratulations to Seth Wealing and Susie Gallucci, the top U.S. finishers at the ITU World Cup in
England.

Errr... Can you just explain why we are to congratulate these 2 and not the actual winners?

LN

"lardy ninja" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

"R R" <[email hidden]> wrote in message

news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Congratulations to Seth Wealing and Susie Gallucci, the top U.S.

finishers

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

at the ITU World Cup in England.

Errr... Can you just explain why we are to congratulate these 2 and not the actual

winners?

They were. They were (so the OP claims) the top two American finishers. Since, to Americans, no-one
else counts they must, therefore, be the winners. Simple.

T

[email hidden] (Jason O'Rourke) wrote in message
news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

Exciting was the 2002 Alcatraz race, where Craig Walton was leading on the bike till he got hit
with a nasty muscle cramp towards the top of the Cliff House climb, fell over. Then Greg Bennent
had a commanding lead until the last 2 miles of flat running when he suffered one of the most
spectacular bonks ever and staggered in at 18th place. And Jones motored up the Sand Ladder to
take over the women's race to win her 7th straight.

DEEZNUTS!!!

[email hidden] (lardy ninja) wrote in message
news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

"R R" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

Congratulations to Seth Wealing and Susie Gallucci, the top U.S. finishers at the ITU World Cup
in England.

Who cares? You crossposted this into RBR.

Quoted message said:

Errr... Can you just explain why we are to congratulate these 2 and not the actual winners?

LN

K. J. Papai said:

Who cares? You crossposted this into RBR.

I'd certainly care if you managed to not cross post to rss. I'd care very much. I might even thank
you, though I'd prefer to start a new, much less crossposted, thread to do so 🙂

--Mike

In article <[email hidden]>, one of infinite monkeys at the

keyboard of (lardy ninja) said:

Errr...

Did you see the OP's .sig? Looks like the american Taliban; immune to logic or reason. Argument
is futile.

--
Axis of Evil: Whose economy needs ever more wars? Arms Exports $bn: USA 14.2, UK 5.1, vs France 1.5,
Germany 0.8 (The Economist, July 2002)

In article said:

In article said:

Ok Jason let me see if I got this right. You don't like drafting triathlons.

I merely disliked draftathons until watching the ITU broadcasts. Now I hate them. And I'm all for
Wagner's proposal for arming officials with shotguns for the offenders on the bike leg.

I saw one on TV the other day. Yawnfest!

But drafting would still work if they included actual climbs on the bike leg. They just need
something to allow the stronger riders to gain some time... if they know they are just dragging
their competitors along they won't work, and the result is that they all come back together. If
that's the goal the organizers might as well delete the cycling and swimming portions.

Eric

"Eric Murray" <[email hidden]> wrote in message "]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

But drafting would still work if they included actual climbs on the bike leg. They just need
something to allow the stronger riders to gain some time... if they know they are just dragging
their competitors along they won't work, and the result is that they all come back together. If
that's the goal the organizers might as well delete the cycling and swimming portions.

You could cut out the running as well and make it a quick change event!

"Mike Edey" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

K. J. Papai said:

Who cares? You crossposted this into RBR.

I'd certainly care if you managed to not cross post to rss. I'd care very much. I might even thank
you, though I'd prefer to start a new, much less crossposted, thread to do so 🙂

Obviously I X-posted to all the original groups on purpose and am again since you continue
the X-post.

Bottom line:

triathlon discussion is highly discouraged in RBR, obviously.

Thanks, Ken

Quoted message said:

--Mike

Eric Murray said:

But drafting would still work if they included actual climbs on the bike leg. They just need
something to allow the stronger riders to gain some time... if they know they are just dragging
their competitors along they won't work, and the result is that they all come back together.

Is breaking away on the bike portion of a triathlon illegal or somehow impossible? If I'm not
mistaken, those guys in France last month staged several breakaways--even on flat stages.
--
terry morse Palo Alto, CA terrymorse.combikeOpen ↗

Terry Morse said:

Eric Murray wrote:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

But drafting would still work if they included actual climbs on the bike leg. They just need
something to allow the stronger riders to gain some time... if they know they are just dragging
their competitors along they won't work, and the result is that they all come back together.

Quoted message said:

Is breaking away on the bike portion of a triathlon illegal or somehow impossible? If I'm not
mistaken, those guys in France last month staged several breakaways--even on flat stages.

It isn't illegal, just tactically foolish. TdF riders don't have to save themselves for a run after
the stage finish. And in a triathlon, the entire pack has incentive to chase a breakaway. While
draft-illegal triathlons have some strategy inherent in the pacing, AFAICT draft-legal triathlons
are about getting to the end of the bike leg in the main pack, whereupon the fastest/freshest
runner wins.

Terry Morse said:

Eric Murray said:

But drafting would still work if they included actual climbs on the bike leg. They just need
something to allow the stronger riders to gain some time... if they know they are just dragging
their competitors along they won't work, and the result is that they all come back together.

Is breaking away on the bike portion of a triathlon illegal or somehow impossible? If I'm not
mistaken, those guys in France last month staged several breakaways--even on flat stages.

As Benjamin said, a triathlon is a VERY different animal than a road race. IF there's a steep hill
near the second trasition area, it might make tactical sense to try to drop the pack.

If not, you're not going to win by breaking away from a functioning pack. You'll be expending about
25-30% more energy just to go as fast as the pack - more to go just a bit faster.

Of course, if you can do that for half the bike leg and STILL outrun the competition, you were
going to win anyway. Thing is, most races aren't won by someone who's much, much stronger than
everyone else.

That said, after the second TT in the TdF last year, the question came up about how Lance would have
fared in an Olympic distance tri. Obviously, he knows how to swim and run (having been the US Jr.
Tri champion at 16, and was starting to beat up on the pros), so he could come out of the water at
least somewhat close to the "pack". Assuming the pack was really working at near capacity in the
race we compared, and that Lance could get away cleanly and hold the pace he did in the 2nd TT - he
would have needed only to run something "pedestrian" like 7 minute miles to win. Obviously, that
wouldn't have been a problem.

But of course, we'll never know - was the pack really working at 100% (why would they)? Still, it
would be fun to watch. Draft legal tris are BORING (I was at both of the 2000 Olympic tris - yawn...
big pack exits the water together, rides some laps together, then they start the real event - a 10km
foot race.

Mark Hickey Habanero Cycles habcycles.comhabcycles.comOpen ↗ Home of the $695 ti frame