- This is the GTN Show, welcome.
It is a busy one this week,
we've got triathlon news, race news,
some real time transitions and a lot more.
And don't worry if you're missing Mark,
he will be appearing in the show a little bit later on.
- And on top of all that, just to warn you,
we have been thinking.
Now, I know you guys most probably know what triathlon is,
or at least, I hope so,
but what do you think about the general population?
Do they actually know what this sport is, that we love?
We're going to be finding out.
(upbeat music)
- We pretty much live, breathe,
and, most certainly, talk triathlon,
or all things swim, bike and run,
but how many other people actually know about it?
Now, Fraser, I know that you have done triathlon
for pretty much all of your life,
do you have friends that don't know what triathlon is?
- I see where you're going with this, Heather.
I mean, you're right, I have literally lived the life
of a triathlete for a long time,
and most of my social circle definitely comes
from inside the sport,
but I do have some other good friends
that weren't involved with triathlon,
but admittedly, they really did know about the sport
because of me.
As to how much and how well,
well, I didn't really ever ask them, I guess.
- Okay, well, I think, I actually learned about triathlon
from friends and from people who were doing it because,
I knew of a different type of triathlon
when I was about eight or nine,
but that's another story, for another day, I think.
- Was there some fencing in it?
- There wasn't fencing, there was running and swimming but,
instead of cycling, there was shooting,
so maybe, we should do one of those one day.
But, anyway, we digress.
Triathlon is a young sport,
it didn't actually start in the Olympics
until Sydney, in 2000, and actually,
wasn't even a sport until the '70s so,
it's understandable that especially older people
wouldn't know what the sport is.
- No, and people often get confused by
which order things go in, what do we need to wear,
do we get given equipment at races?
Where do you swim? I often get asked.
So, it definitely still is struggling to
definitely get into public consciousness, isn't it?
- Yeah, I think so.
Well, I mean, I don't know, but I think
I want to find out from what
the actual, real general public do.
Admittedly, we are in the U.K.,
but I'm going to head out onto the streets of Bath,
to find out.
Do you know what the sport of triathlon is?
- No, I do not.
- Any guesses?
- I would guess it involves some form of exercise.
- So, quick question,
do you know what the sport of triathlon is?
- No.
- Any idea?
- No.
- Running, then swimming, then cycling.
- Right guys, I want to know if you know what triathlon is.
- Is it a three sport event?
So, it's like bicycle, swimming and running.
- Did you know that?
And do you know what order it might be in?
- Is it swimming, then cycling, then running?
- No, running, cycling. - Running, cycling?
- It is swimming, cycling, running, yeah.
And any, can you name any famous triathletes, either of you?
- No, don't know.
- Brown... Brownlees? Is it? - Yes.
- The two brothers, the two twins?
- Can you name any famous triathletes?
- Oh, yes, from the Brownlee brothers, on the male side.
The final Ironwoman, who won at the end of the last year,
Non Stanford?
- The two brothers from Yorkshire,
and I've forgotten their name.
I should do, because that's where I come from!
- I was going to say, that accent sounds like
it's rather close to where the...
- I'm from Liverpool, but I live in Yorkshire, near Leeds.
- Shall I put you out of your misery?
- Go on then. - The Brownlee brothers.
- That's it, the Brownlee brothers.
- Can you name any other triathletes?
- No.
- So, first of all, do you know what triathlon is?
- Yes, I think so, I'm not sure of the distances,
but I think I do.
- Go on, what do you think it is?
- It involves running, possibly a marathon,
then swimming, and then cycling, equal distances.
- Do you know what the sport of triathlon is?
- Yes, I do.
- Go on. - Go on?
- Can you tell me?
And, do you know the order?
- Yes.
In order of danger, swimming, cycling and running.
- Well, Bath is a pretty sporty city,
but still, not that many people actually knew
what triathlon was,
and there was quite a bit of guessing going on
as to the sports,
and definitely the order.
But, obviously, we are biased, so I want to know,
in this week's GTN poll,
whether you think the general public,
not your friends or your close family,
but whether the general public know what triathlon is.
So, you've got four options for this week's poll.
No, they've got no idea.
Yes, they know what triathlon is, and can name the sports.
Yes, they know what triathlon is,
and can name the order of the sports.
And then, finally, they can name all of the sports,
and also, a famous triathlete.
Well, to enter that poll, just click in the link up here.
And that now leads us on to last week's poll,
when we asked, "Is triathlon good for you?"
And, obviously, we are all pretty biased,
and the results showed that because,
96% of you said yes, it's good for you.
And just 4% thought it wasn't.
Well, that's pretty conclusive, I think.
Anyway, I'm going to have to leave this sunshine,
I think it's probably time I headed back into set
to catch up with Fraser.
Ah, Fraser, you won't believe how many people
don't know what triathlon is.
- That's great, Heather, but we really need
to get organized and start packing.
- I know, California, yeah, okay,
but I do need to actually pack my bikinis,
I'd better go for that, it's going to take me some time.
Alright, see you in a moment. - Quick!
- [Heather] Okay, right, I'll go and start.
- Got to get to California.
- [Heather] Woo!
(crowd murmuring)
(airplane engines roaring)
- Guys? Guys? Guys?
Where are they?
- [Cameraman] They're in California, man.
- What they've, they've gone without me?
- [Cameraman] Yep.
- Well, I suppose, they want me to do the news
whilst they sun themselves in California?
That's hardly fair.
Well, it is actually a good job,
I've got a load of tech to start off this week,
otherwise I'd be really quite upset.
Now, this past weekend, we had the London Triathlon Show,
which, I guess, offers a good opportunity for brands
to launch and release new products.
Now, first one I've got for you is the INCUS product.
Now, this is, basically, a super-duper sports wearable.
It combines artificial intelligence, sports wearables,
and data analytics, to help you train and perform better.
Now, from what I can tell, this is designed specifically
for swimming at the moment,
but it does sound like they might expand
beyond this in the future, perhaps to cycling and running.
Now, by using their rather fancy device,
you can start to capture a ton of data about your stroke,
and then using their equally as fancy app,
you can pull that data apart.
You can start to spot trends within your technique,
your stroke, patterns,
right down to the millisecond.
So, for instance, if you have a dead spot in your stroke,
at the front,
this could be the most advanced way of analyzing that today.
Now, another product comes from BikeBox Alan,
who are well known for their bike boxes,
and this new product is called their Easyfit bike box.
Now, as most people know,
traveling with a TT bike, or triathlon bike,
can be rather stressful.
We have internal cables, tightly run cables,
so actually, trying to disassemble a TT bike
can be really difficult, if not impossible in some cases.
So, with this new box, you can literally plonk your bike
right into the box, without really having
to disassemble much from it, in some cases,
depending on the size of your frame, or the type of bike,
it's literally just the wheels that need to come off.
You can even leave the pedals
and the rear derailleur installed,
and of course, it's a hard case,
making it a very safe way of traveling with your bike.
Okay, so good news for you here, the Hoff is back.
Okay, not that Hoff, but Ben Hoffman,
which is still pretty cool.
Now, unfortunately, he sustained a stress fracture
ahead of the Ironman World Championship,
at the end of last year,
but he's back racing,
and we did actually see him race a few weeks ago
in Ironman 70.3 Campeche,
where he finished an impressive 3rd,
but I'll be honest, I was not expecting him to be racing
a full distance any time soon, given the injury that he had.
But, he has just announced that he's going to be racing
next week at the Ironman African Championships,
which is great news.
But, on the flip side of that, some not so good news
is Jan Frodeno has announced his postponement
to the start of his 2019 race season.
Now, he was meant to be racing Ironman 70.3 at Oceanside,
this weekend, where Heather and Fraser currently are,
and this was really quite anticipated,
because this was the big showdown
between Lionel Sanders and Jan Frodeno,
but unfortunately, we're just going to have to wait
a little bit longer.
(upbeat music)
Well, now for the race news,
and this weekend we had the ITU World Cup
in New Plymouth, New Zealand.
Now, the field was absolutely stacked for this race.
We had Olympians,
Commonwealth Games representatives,
we had sprint specialists,
and we even had a bit of triathlon royalty,
because we had Javier Gomez
making a bit of a comeback to his ITU roots.
Now, in the swim, no surprises,
it was Richard Varga really pushing the pace,
but, hot on his heels, was Sam Ward,
and they formed the lead group
with a few others who made a quick transition through T1,
but one athlete that did miss out on that breakaway
was Javier Gomez.
He was just off the back of them,
so he ended up in the chase pack,
and that chase pack actually worked really well together.
They managed to bridge up to that breakaway group and,
as they did so, Javier Gomez launched an attack of his own
up one of the hills.
And that really injected a ton of pace into that group,
so we had quite a large, frantic group coming into T2.
And it was Luke Willian that really pushed the pace
as he went out onto the run.
He managed to maintain that to take the tape,
and it was Justus Nieschlag that took second,
and in third, it was Sam Ward.
Well, in the women's race, it was Emma Jeffcoat
that led out of the water,
forming a group of 10 on the bike in the lead group.
And they actually managed to gain a 37 second advantage
coming back into T2.
And they slowly worked their way through,
whittling each other down,
and it was Angelica Olmo that eventually pushed the pace
into the final stages of the run,
managing to break away from the group, and take the win.
And then it was Jolanda Annen that took second,
and Jaz Hedgeland that took third.
Well, now moving over to XTERRA,
with the XTERRA Asia-Pacific Champs over in Taiwan,
and this was won by Bradley Weiss and Penny Slater.
Now, this is actually the second time
that Brad Weiss has won this event,
and actually his second win in just one week,
having won the Ironman 70.3 Taiwan race
just the Sunday prior.
But, for Penny, who's just 23 years old,
this is probably her biggest and best win
of her young triathlon career.
Now, in the men's race,
it unfolded with Ben Allen leading the swim out,
with a large group following close behind.
And that group quickly came together on the bike,
so Bradley Weiss pushed the pace on one of the climbs,
managing to break away from the rest of the group,
and actually posting a bike split
two minutes faster than his closest rival.
He continued that onto the run to take the win.
It was Sam Osborne that took second,
and Brice Daubord that took third.
Well, in the women's race, it was a similar story.
We had a large pack emerging from the water,
Jacqui Allen took it upon herself
to put a big effort in one of the climbs
and break that group up,
but Penny Slater managed to hang on to her wheel
all the way up to T2,
and then Penny Slater ran away to take the win.
Jacqui Allen managed to hang on for second,
and then Carina Wasle took third.
And, that is it from me.
So, I guess we should check up
on Heather and Fraser's holiday,
I mean, their Ironman 70.3 Oceanside trip.
(upbeat music)
- Hey, thanks Mark, as you can see,
we've found an okay location out here and...
- I'm coping with it.
- Southern California, yeah,
but I think it's time to pick up the rest of the show,
and we've actually got T1 now.
We've had this fun one sent in by Andre which,
admittedly, is super, super speedy, but annoyingly,
he's just started to take his wetsuit off
before we could time it,
so I'm afraid, Andre,
you don't get to go on the leaderboard,
but, and also a little bit of outside assistance.
- There was some serious outside assistance, actually.
- Super speedy T1 though, we love it.
But I think, Fraser, you've had one sent in.
- I have, now, this is one we're going to have
a little bit of a look at right now.
(relaxing music)
Now, that was a rather speedy transition, wasn't it?
And we timed that at nine seconds which, provisionally,
I think knocks Hank off of our leaderboard pole,
so we have, finally, a triathlete back on top.
- About time too, but do keep sending them in
if you reckon you can beat that.
Make sure you get practicing,
whether it's even in your kitchen, or at your pool,
send it in through the uploader,
which you can actually find in the link
in the description below.
But anyway, sticking with transitions,
we're now looking at some of the photos
you guys have sent in.
And our first one here is from a transition,
it's the Tri 4 the Cure, an event in Phoenix, Arizona.
- [Fraser] Yeah, and we've got quite
a collection of bikes in there,
we've got a time trial bike right there
at the front with the disk,
and everything you'd expect for somebody
trying to go rather quick.
- [Heather] Yeah, the shoes already on the pedals,
so obviously, a quick transition planned.
- [Fraser] I think a road bike
is the next one that I can see there,
- [Heather] Yeah, apparently that's got
mountain bike pedals, so again, a bit of an eclectic mix.
And then, last, but definitely not least,
there is a beach cruiser, a three-speed beach cruiser.
- [Fraser] Which is something I've never actually ridden,
and ironically, here we are, sitting on the beach.
- Yeah, well, apparently, this triathlon was designed,
obviously, to help raise money for breast cancer charity,
but also just getting people involved,
and it really shows that you've got
a full spectrum of athletes,
so great to see that one.
- Yeah, it's lovely.
The next picture we have is
a rather beautiful looking scene
that Chris has sent in from Aberporth in Wales,
which I do think is looking rather nice.
- Now, interestingly, he said,
"After getting an allergic reaction to pool water,
decided to swim in the sea, this winter, all winter,
almost every day,
without a wetsuit."
Now, we're in California, and I'm not even
going to go in the sea here without a wetsuit,
and for those of you who don't live in the U.K.,
it is absolutely freezing.
- Yeah, well done Chris.
I mean, I do hope you get over your reaction,
or allergic reaction to the pool,
but you should maybe try and get back in there, I think.
- Good on you!
But anyway, we now want to take a look
at some of our photos.
I think it's time that we get to show off a little bit
about the fun, sorry, the work,
that we're doing here in California.
- Quick correction there.
- I know you've been out doing some,
I saw some of your photos posing by the pier in Oceanside.
- [Fraser] Yeah, we found a lifeguard tower,
and all sorts of fun so, work can be fun sometimes, right?
- Don't say that too loudly, but yeah,
there's going to be lots more photos,
so keep an eye on the GTN Instagram account as well,
because you might spot some there.
Or, if you're out in Oceanside racing, keep an eye for us,
because we'll be here for the race.
But anyway, now it is time to move on
to our caption competition.
(upbeat music)
Well, last week, you might remember,
we had this photo from Abu Dhabi,
and a lot of suggestions, quite a few along this line
of our first runner-up, do you want to read it..?
- [Fraser] Yeah, so we've got one from Tim Ford, who says,
"The evolution of the triathlete," which, yeah,
it does look very Darwinian, I suppose, doesn't it?
- Yeah, well over on that track, well,
our second runner up comes from Tom Epton,
I do like this one, quite clever,
"Better get a move on, I'm Hungary."
Now, you might notice it's a Hungarian athlete
coming out of the water, clever one.
- Right, our winner, is from Jamison Bundy, who says,
"I have a hunch she might be ready for the bike."
So, we like that a lot, so well done, Jamison.
- Yeah, well done, Jamison, you get a free GTN cap,
so just get in contact for that,
but we've got some exciting news on the GTN caps,
because we have some brand new ones in the shop,
check these out!
We've got pink, orange, and blue
and, well, I'm excited about them.
- [Fraser] It's almost the whole rainbow now,
you've got a choice of.
- Yeah, nice stuff.
Well, if you want a chance to win one of those caps,
but, I mean, or you can obviously go and buy them,
but, you've got the chance of winning a cap
in this week's caption competition,
which, we've got this photo sent in from Chris.
The start of a race, and it looks pretty frantic.
- [Fraser] Yeah, I think what's happened here is,
they've had a tape that they've not waited to get raised
before they've eagerly tried to get going,
so somebody seems to have caught
that right under their nose, I think.
- [Heather] Right, they've got the bit
between their teeth, there.
- [Fraser] They have, yes, see what you did there.
- But, if you want a chance to win
one of those new GTN caps,
all you need to do is send in your caption suggestion,
leave it in the comments section below.
- Yes, and hopefully you've enjoyed
our show again this week,
so please hit that thumb up like button,
don't forget, click on the globe to subscribe
and get all of our other videos on GTN.
- And, if you want to see some work
that we have actually been doing out here,
you can see all you need to know about Oceanside,
the race that we're here for,
and that is just down here.