Mark: Welcome back to the GTN Show. This week, we'll be taking a look at the inaugural Super
League Arena games, which definitely has a bit of a twist on the usual triathlon format.
We have a man that has run 300 kilometers and cycled 600 kilometers in just 5 days.
Yes, I know. We also have possibly the strongest London Marathon elite start list in some time.
Yes, we have got a lot this week and just to add to that, we're going to be introducing
our new GTN guest presenter. [music]
All right. I won't keep you hanging. Let's start the news by unveiling this new GTN guest
presenter. Drum roll. Sam: It's me. Don't be too disappointed, this
might not be a huge surprise for many of you that have been following GTN, as you may have
seen me popping up in videos such as; the 100 kilometer run or the GTA Everesting run,
which I can promise you I will not be doing again. You may well see me in some videos
going forward, as I step in as a guest. I've got a huge passion for triathlon, as well
as racing professionally for the last couple of years and I really look forward to sharing
some of my knowledge with you and just generally having some fun. With that said, I will see
you soon. Bye. Mark: I'm jumping in here now with some breaking
news that landed just yesterday, after just having filmed the GTN Show, but this is big
news. World Triathlon has just announced that their upcoming WTS Hamburg event, will now
be awarding the World Championship titles for 2020. This follows the board's decision
to cancel the remaining couple of events for the WTS series for 2020, as well as there
obviously not having been a series to this point. Rather than athletes accumulating points
throughout the season for within the WTS series for the World Championship title, it now comes
down to this one event on the 5th of September in Hamburg.
Already, those start lists are packed, they're full for the elite male, female and even the
mixed team relay. We've got the current World Champions Katie Zaferes and Vincent Luis.
We've even got the likes of Johnny Brownlee, multiple World Champions Mario Mola, Flora
Duffy and even Vicky Holland amongst many of others. They've also added an additional
10 places to the elite male and female start list, so all very, very exciting. Actually,
it kind of takes us back to how the World titles used to be awarded prior to the WTS
series coming in, in around 2009. Stay tuned for the 5th of September, WTS Hamburg.
We're super excited to have Sam in more and as I'm sure you all agree, he brings a ton
of energy and enthusiasm to the channel and to the team. Super excited about that, let's
just hope he doesn't think up any more crazy challenges or ideas for him, myself and for
any others in the team for that matter. Moving on, this weekend we had a first for the world
triathlon. We had an indoor triathlon, which isn't anything new, merged with virtual racing.
That's right, we had the Super League Arena game.
In an attempt to bring some high level elite racing, while still adhering to social distancing
guidelines, Super League really thought outside the box on this one. They invited 10 of the
best male and female triathletes to the Rotterdam Swimming Center in which they swam within
the pool, but for the cycling and the running portions, they were done virtually on Zwift.
Prior to the race, athletes were assigned a treadmill alongside the swimming pool all
connected up to Zwift. They also set their own road bikes up on a smart trainer, all
connected up to Zwift also obviously, all alongside the swimming pool. They then undertook
Super League's triple mix format which is; three stages of swim-bike-run, but in a different
order in each of those three stages. They started off with a 200 meter swim, 4 kilometer
bike and a 1 kilometer run. They then just had a couple of minutes break, before doing
the same again, the same distances, but a different order. They went bike-run-swim,
couple minutes break and then finished with run-swim-bike. We had some super exciting
racing, both from the men's and women's side. In the women's race, well, it was Jess Learmonth
show. She took the maximum 30 points, winning all three stages. Second place went to Rachel
Klamer and third went to Valerie Barthelemy. In the men's race, well, we had some excitement
from the get go because in the first stage it was Jonas Schomburg that actually decided
to go shoeless on the run. That saved him a whole chunk of time, causing a bit of an
upset and taking the win quite comfortably. Going to the second stage, well, it seemed
like a few people noticed that and so they'd also go shoeless. Though interestingly, Javier
Gomez and Johnny Brownlee didn't and they lost some time actually in that second stage.
In the end though, it was Justus Nieschlag that took the win overall. Second went to
Vasco Vilaca and then third amazingly, Javier Gomez managed to claw back for that.
Now anyone with their ears to the ground in the triathlon world will know that we actually
had the French Grand Prix taking place, obviously, over in France, the day before and Javier
Gomez managed to do both. Here's what he had to say. He said, "Well, I didn't expect to
be on the podium overall, so I'm super pleased. It's not my favorite distance, as an older
guy like me. I raced the French Grand Prix event yesterday and the trip there and here
was horrendous, with everything going wrong. I slept for four hours and felt it for most
of the first triathlon, but I'm proud of being competitive amongst some of the best guys
at the shorter distances." Well, from one weekend of exciting racing
to another, but this coming weekend we have some proper real racing. This one is Challenge
Davos, over in Switzerland. It's a middle-distance race with a slight twist, it's got a 54 kilometer
bike section. We've spoken about this race before, it is attracting a stellar line. We've
got the likes of Sebastian Kienle, Kristian Blummenfelt, Imogen Simmonds, Laura Philipp,
amongst many others. Now, obviously, given the lack of racing this year, the potential
earnings for the pro athletes has been quite limited. The PTO have stepped in, for Challenge
Davos, and they have doubled the prize purse for it, which is absolutely fantastic.
Not only that, they've also included a rather unique bonus pool fund for the athletes, this
is going to the top 20 athletes overall for men and women. The way they're doing this
is they've taken the fastest male and female times from previous years, I'm guessing, and
just calculating off those that are involved in the race. They've worked out a deficit
of around 29 minutes and 39 seconds, between the fastest male and the fastest female. They'll
be deducting that time from the women's finishing times and then we'll see who finishes in the
top 20 and cashes in on that bonus pool fund. Which is pretty exciting. A very, very cool
format and a nice way to bring equality into sport.
Well, moving on. I think it's fair to say, the athletics world seems to have kicked their
racing off with a bang. Last week, we spoke about that astonishing 5k time, in which we
broke the 16 year old 5k world record. This weekend, we had another Diamond League event
over in Stockholm with some super fast racing. I think it's fair to say, here at GTN and
us as triathletes, we're often quite attracted to those longer endurance events. Those major
marathons often take our fancy and get us quite interested.
Well, you may be interested to hear the London Marathon start list because it is pretty spicy
if not that their best start list today. They have none other than the sub-two-hour man
Kipchoge. He is actually unbeaten on the London Marathon course. He's going to be racing alongside
Kenenisa Bekele, as well as Sir Mo Farah, who's actually down as a pacemaker, which
will be quite interesting to see who he's pacing perhaps for Olympic games trials times
and what not. On the women's side, we also have an equally
stacked field as well as the World Record holder Brigid Kosgei. Obviously, there is
no mass participation event for the London Marathon this year, they've postponed it to
October the 4th. It's an elite only event. It's going to be on a closed loop circuit
of St. James Park, but still ends with the iconic finish down the mall.
Finally from me on the news, I'm actually quite excited hand on over to Frazer. This
weekend, American ultrarunner adventurer, John Kelly, completed something quite astonishing,
it's called the Grand Round. It involved 300 kilometers of running and 600 kilometers of
cycling. Now, I'm actually going to try and do my best to explain this to do it justice,
because it really is quite incredible. Now, here in the UK, we have a number of routes
or rounds, we often call them, that are just insane. They are over tough, tough terrain
and tend to take in insane amounts of elevation. John decided, he would combine three of the
toughest of those. He did the 98 kilometer Paddy Buckley Round, which is a route in Wales
that features 8,500 meters of elevation gain. He did the 106 kilometer Bob Graham Round,
which I'm sure many people have heard of that in the Lake District, a route which is around
8,200 meters of climbing and finally finished with the 96 kilometer Ramsay Round in Scotland,
another 8,500 meters of elevation gain. Oh and he cycled between each of those. That
in total works out at 300 kilometers of running, 25,000 meters of climbing and more than 600
kilometers of cycling, all of which he completed in just 5 days.
Just to add to this amazing feat, he did this just around three weeks after having set the
record, the fastest known time the FKT, over the Pennine Way in the UK; which is 431 kilometers
of running. That took him, 2 days, 16 hours and 46 minutes. Unfortunately, that FKT was
actually beaten by his friend Damian Hall just a week later. I don't think anyone's
going to be taking this incredible feat away from because it is absolutely amazing and
I really do take my hat off to this athlete. What a staggering performance over the space
of a month. Now very excited to hand on over to Fraser.
Fraser: Well, hello, everybody. Now, I'm very glad to be back involved in the show this
week and especially after that news that we're now going to have Sam more regularly involved
as a guest presenter. I'm certainly looking forward to having him around more in the future.
Now, I'm going to get going with this week's race news. Much like last week, there was
just one event to talk about and that was this week's IRONMAN VR Pro Challenge and this
was the 20th edition of that. Yes, they have been going for an incredible five months now.
This week it was over the Ironman 70.3 distance, which meant that the athletes had a 500-meter
swim to tackle, followed by 90 ks over parts of the IRONMAN Austria course, finished off
with a five-kilometer run. Now this week, it was also an all North American affair with
athletes from America and Canada taking part. In the women's racing, we had an American
victor in the form of Alissa Doehla. Now she sealed that with an incredible 16:47 5k time,
so pretty rapid. Second place went to Canada's Pamela-Ann St-Pierre. Third place went to
Jennifer Spieldenner from America. Now in the men's racing, we also had a clean sweep
because it was American Nicholas Chase who took the win. Second place went to fellow
American Tripp Hipple. Third place, despite a 15 minute and six split seconds 5k, went
to Canada's multiple IRONMAN champion, Brent McMahon.
[music] Right then. Now it is time to have a look
at some of the pictures that you are sending us in each week. First up, I've got this one
from Tim who says he is somewhere in Southern Maine over there in the US. Now he's aboard
his Felt IA 14 and he says, "I used the automatic route feature in Garmin Connect and ended
up on this road." "My TT bike," he says,"is certainly not a gravel bike, but I still had
a fun adventure all the same." I'm glad to hear it, Tim. You know what? I think it's
good to get off the beaten track every now and then, even if I'm on my TT bike. Hope
you had a good day and didn't come home with any punctures.
Next, I've got a cracking picture here from Benjamin. Now he is in a very nice part of
the world, I'm rather envious of you Benjamin, La Jolla Shores in the San Diego. Now, what
a great place to go for an open water swim. But hey, he is on point here. He is branded
up with his GTN swim cap bright blue one for nice and safe out in the water. I also can't
help but notice he's got what I think is a very vintage Xterra wetsuit on. Please let
me know if it's not vintage, Benjamin. We don't see very many Xterra wetsuits over here
in the UK and Europe so let me know when you got that suit, but thanks very much for that
and keep enjoying those swims over there in California.
Now back to a bike picture, and this is a cracker from Damien, who's in London and he
is aboard a specialized S-Works shift. Now he says, "Just got this bad boy four weeks
ago, and I've been loving it from the start. I always thought that tri bikes are just uncomfortable
machines until I got this one. Not a single niggle or discomfort and did I mention it's
hella fast." Glad to hear you're loving that bike and I'm sure you'll get to grips with
it more and more in the near future. Thanks for sending us that in there.
Finally, we got this great story from David. Now it is David Dwyer and he is in Ireland.
Now David says, "I started training for triathlons in 2018 and my first race with the Ironman
70.3 done later in the year. Since then I've done Ironman Youghal last year and a number
of 70.3s and sprints." On Friday, September the 11th, he is going
to embark on a 2,018-kilometer ride that takes a nearly 18,000 meters of elevation, also
an unassisted. That is one heck of a bike ride that you're tackling, David. This is
all in need of Pieta House which is an Irish mental health charity and he's going to be
raising as much money as possible for them. He's planning to cover the distance in just
10 days and he says, "Since I've only been riding my bike for just over two years, this
is a huge challenge, but I will not fail." Absolutely all the best of luck for that one,
David. If you want to read more about it or perhaps send him some money, he's got a JustGiving
page. Just search his name or alternatively find him on Instagram at _dodwyer.
We love to see all of your pictures so please keep sending them in and letting us know what
you're getting up to out there in training or whatever you're doing because it is great
to keep involved. Now you can do that by finding the link down there in the description, or
there should also be a link up on the screen now.
[music] Right. Now it's time to have a look at your
caption competition entries. Now, Heather had a interesting picture of two synchro swimmers
for you last week, and I've narrowed it down to five runners-up and a winner. I'll get
started with those now. David Bannister, he came up with, "Flagrant breach of the COVID
social distancing rules but breathing to the safest side at least."
Seth Johnson came up with, "High five, stroke, high five." Like it, Seth. Garrett Shost came
up with, "I'm glad we are synced up and not sinking down." Now that was a clever one.
Lee Naylor was simply with, "Hi mom. Hi dad." Then we had Alex Franklin who suggested, "Tandem
swimming coming soon, twice as efficient." The winner of this week comes from Bailey
Ward and he said, "What did the ocean say to the other ocean? Nothing, they just waved."
I think that's great so congratulations, Bailey. Please remember to send in your details so
we can get a cap out to you. If you fancy winning a cap next week, well, get your thinking
caps in and send us a thought about this picture here. Now it comes from the recent super league
indoor arena games, and there's a very focused looking athlete if you don't mind me saying.
She has got the eye of the tiger going on there, but anyway, you let us know what you
think. Drop your suggestions down in the comments below, and we'll see if you can win a cap
next week. Now we're coming towards the end of this week's
show, but with some great content coming up later in the week. First up, I want to tell
you about another Zwift race where we have got GTN battling GCN. I know who my money
will be on, but you'll have to tune in later in the week to see who took the spoils. We've
also got a video about how to adapt your swim stroke for the open water and perhaps you
have noticed these t-shirts that we are now wearing. These brand new summery vibe themed
t-shirts. If you fancy picking up one of those follow the link on screen and you can get
one of them in our freshly stocked shop. Hopefully, you have also enjoyed this video.
Hit that like button and don't forget to click on the globe to subscribe and not miss any
of the other videos on our channel. Before you go, I've got a couple other videos to
remind you of. There is a fantastic challenge video that Heather took on with Mark, that
is the swimmer versus runner and that is here. They also did a video about pacing versus
non-paced and you can find that here. [00:17:00] [END OF AUDIO]