- What's up, Trainiacs?
Welcome to this week's Triathlon Newsday Tuesday,
where we have probably the biggest, baddest,
and best edition of Triathlon Newsday
that we have ever done.
It is jam packed.
Alistair Brownlee announces that he is stepping up
to the big kahuna, the full distance, the Ironman,
UCI cracks down on mechanical bike doping,
and unfortunately, we had a death in Ironman-land.
(energetic music)
What's up, triathletes?
Welcome to our weekly Newsday Tuesday,
where every single Tuesday, typically,
as long as I'm not traveling and there is news
to talk about, we talk about what's going on
all around the triathlon world.
Make sure you stick around 'til the end,
where everyone's favorite part of Triathlon Newsday,
and that's a story from the Trainiac community, is shared,
and as always, full links to everything we talk about
will be in the description below.
And there is a lot to talk about here today.
Let's start it off with Alistair Brownlee,
two-time Olympic gold medalist,
announcing that he is going to be finally stepping it up,
after many years of speculation,
to the full Ironman distance.
He's going to be making his debut
at the full distance at Ironman Cork in Ireland
on June 23rd this year.
Now, I've often said that to be strong in Ironman,
you need to be really durable.
You need to be strong.
We tend to see athletes that are a little bit bulkier
doing better at the full distance,
as opposed to the slender, slimmer athletes
that do really well at Sprint and Olympic.
Now, Alistair certainly goes more towards
that more slender athlete, and he has been
a little bit injury-prone, so I have to do a video
analyzing what I actually think about Alistair
stepping up to the full distance.
He's a fantastic athlete, but there are some things
around that that I'm not sure about.
UCI, that governing body all around the world
for cycling has announced that as of 2020,
they will roll out a tracking system
that will detect mechanical doping.
These are motors that go in the bottom bracket
or in the wheels of bikes and theoretically allow cyclists
to cheat amidst the race.
Now, currently what UCI does is
they have mobile x-ray machines
that they take throughout the bikes
before a race, and they have that at the end
of the race at the finish line,
but that's not to say that people couldn't switch bikes
throughout the race, until 2020
when this new system is supposedly going to come out,
and it'll be able to track if there are mechanical devices.
I don't know how they're going to do that,
through the race.
Very interesting, and goes to show
that cycling is still not yet clean.
Frankly, I don't believe any sport is 100% clean,
but cycling still has this stigma
that has been around it for 10, 15 years now.
Unfortunately, I am sad to say
that one man passed away after the swim
at Half Ironman Wisconsin over the weekend,
and one man is in critical condition after the swim
at Half Ironman Wisconsin this weekend.
Apparently, the individuals were pulled out of the water
and they were unresponsive.
One of them passed away and the other is in the hospital.
This comes after what seemingly would be
perfect race conditions.
Waters were calm, waters were warm,
wet suits were allowed for the athletes.
But unfortunately, this does happen fairly often
in Ironman races.
When you get thousands of athletes all around each other
and a number of athletes that are coming into the sport,
being fairly uncomfortable in the water,
this is an unfortunate reality of our sport.
And I know that Ironman is doing a lot
to curb the occurrences of this with rolling starts,
with breaking up into age group starts, things like that.
When it comes right down to it,
it is on us to do the training necessary
to be comfortable in open water.
Make sure you're subscribed to see our swim videos for that.
My apologies and condolences go out to the families
of these two men.
Now, let's get into race results,
because there are more race results this week
and more interesting race results than we've had in months.
Probably since some time last year,
maybe as long as I can remember.
Let's start off
with the annual Escape From Alcatraz Triathlon,
where athletes jump off the boat
at the island of Alcatraz, swim to San Francisco,
bike and run through San Francisco.
And the race was won by Ben Kanute.
This comes just after a week of having a very poor race
at the Challenge Championship.
On the women's side, Ashleigh Gentle
ended up sidestepping her traditional focus
on ITU races, and there was a big one this weekend
I'll get to in a second, and she won on the women's side.
In that big race,
the ITU World Triathlon Series Leeds happened this weekend,
and this is one of the key races
on the World Triathlon series of races,
where athletes accumulate points
throughout the course of the year, to be crowned
the overall World Champion in ITU racing.
Interestingly, this wasn't won by a Javier Gomez
or a Mario Mola, a Jonny Brownlee, a Richard Murray.
It was won by Australian Jake Birtwhistle,
and he is himself a very, very capable athlete,
but when you look at the quality of the field,
you have to say that this is a huge breakout race
for Jacob, so congratulations to him.
On the women's side, Georgia Taylor Brown
from the United States ended up winning
over USA's Katie Zaferes, who has been on fire this year.
And it was Katie Zaferes' birthday,
so happy birthday to Katie Zaferes,
and congratulations to Georgia Taylor Brown.
Great name, like that name.
Slightly less competitive, ITU racing happened
in Huatulco, where there was a World Cup event
that was a Sprint, and I just had to give a shoutout
to my boy, Tyler Mislawchuk, who grew up
about, just like 15 kilometers that way.
So, good job.
In Ironman racing, the Ironman Asia Pacific Championship
happened in Cairns.
Don't know why Australians don't say Cairns.
There's an I and an R in there, but in any case,
it was won by Braden Currie, who smashed the men's field,
winning by almost 20 minutes over Tim Van Berkel.
On the women's side, the race was won, interestingly,
by Teresa Adams, who has previously won her spot
in Kona, but declined it.
Oh, I got sun on me, hang on.
We're so serious here.
Now, if Teresa Adams declines that spot,
there is going to be a roll down a little ways,
because Sarah Crowley finished second,
she already has her spot.
70.3 Eagleman, well, 70.3 Eagleman happened
over the weekend because the swim ended up being canceled
due to rough water conditions,
which led to a rolling time trial bike start and run.
So, full bike, full run, allowing Joe Gambles
and Danielle Dingman, friend of the show
and awesome bike runner, to come out with the wins
at that race.
Half Ironman Staffordshire also happened
over the weekend in England, with hometown athlete
George Goodwin coming out with the win on the men's side
over favorite Will Clarke.
And protrithlontraining.com How to Swim instructor
Lucy Charles came out with the win on the women's side
over Emma Pallant, and this comes just two weeks
after Lucy Charles won in Lanzarote.
So obviously, her legs are still strong.
Congratulations.
Finally, it was an excellent day at Ironman Boulder
for the Julie Dibens crew, athletes coached
by former pro triathlete Julie Dibens.
Matt Hanson, and Lauren Brandon both coached by Julie,
came out with wins, and they were record-breaking wins
on the course, which happened on basically ideal conditions,
somewhere around 13 degrees Celsius, high 50s Fahrenheit.
Just made for fast racing.
So, congratulations to them.
Interestingly enough/segue, both Matt Hanson
and Lauren Brandon have been on the Triathlon Taren podcast.
And yesterday, we published an interview
with Chelsea Sodaro, a new triathlete to the pro field,
who has just been in the media like crazy
because in just her second Half Ironman,
she ran away with the win, last year at Indian Wells 70.3,
very, very convincingly, amidst a tough field.
She's now on the BMC Pro Triathlon team,
making a lot of waves.
People are looking at her as, at someday,
a potential Kona contender.
Also, this week, later today, we will be interviewing
Justin Lippert, three time national champion
in Sprint, Olympic, and Long Course racing
over the course of 2018.
He's a member of the Zwift Triathlon Academy,
and the chief head cheese, Head Full Sender,
Full Send Triathlon.
He's gonna go Full Send on the podcast, big time.
He's not holding back.
Now, it's been a busy, busy Triathlon Newsday,
so let's share a short but sweet Trainiac story,
which goes, my name is Carl, and I am a 44-year-old man
from Czech Republic, who started to lose weight
through triathlon about two years ago.
At that time, I was 297 pounds, 135 kilograms.
I was almost not able to walk up stairs.
I drank heavily since I was 18,
and I smoked 20 to 40 cigarettes a day
for more than 12 years.
I knew I would die soon, or at the very least,
have serious health issues if I didn't stop.
In 2016, my boss emailed me and asked if I'd be
on a swim relay team for a company relay event.
I agreed, even before I knew how long the swim would be
or when it would happen.
And that's how my new life began.
In 2017, I was still fat, but I decided
to try a short triathlon.
I started to swim from zero, as I was not able to do
even freestyle.
I didn't like the run, but at least I was a big fan
of cycling.
And when I did the race, everyone was so supportive
that I couldn't stop,
even as I was walking to the finish line.
Sometime later, I did my first 70.3 race, CZECHMAN,
in the Czech Republic, finishing in six hours, 38 minutes.
As a reward, I entered into Ohio 70.3
and finished at a time of five hours, 45 minutes.
I'm still training and racing.
I'm fitter than ever, and I now weigh just 200 pounds,
93 kilograms, and I'm continuing to lose weight.
I finally feel happy in my life.
I love my beautiful daughter.
She's gotten me through a lot of this.
I hope to be here for a long time for her.
Also, triathlon probably saved my life.
I'm really proud and grateful to be a part
of the Czech triathlon community,
which makes me happy every day.
Cheers, Karel, AKA Carl.
Thank you, Carl.
Thank you for sharing this.
Losing 97 pounds and going from not being able to swim
at all to a 5:40 something Half Ironman, fantastic progress.
And it lets, I think, people know
that your goals, your dreams of what you think
you can do in triathlon is not that far away.
In just two years, going from almost 300 pounds
to 200 pounds, going from 40 smokes a day
to zero smokes a day, going from drinking heavily
and not being able to walk up stairs
to being able to compete and have damn good times
in Half Ironmans is something that you should
be very proud of, Karel, and something
that we can all aspire to.
So if you don't think that you can do triathlons,
think again.
Thank you for sharing your story,
and if you want to get your story shared here
on Triathlon Newsday, make sure you email me
at taren@triathlontaren.com.
And if you aren't yet subscribed
and you like Triathlon Newsday,
hit the subscribe button below.
Later, Trainiacs.