Mark: Welcome back to the GTN show. Now big news this week, the cancellation of the Ironman
and Ironman 70.3 World Championships for 2020. We do, however, have confirmed dates for the
Tokyo 2020/2021 Olympic games, a new PTO or Professional Triathlon Organization vice-chair,
and a 24-hour cycling record attempt. Add to all of that, we also got the completion
of sale of Ironman from Wanda Sports Group to Advance along with various other issues.
It's got us asking, "What on earth is going on over Ironman?"
[music] Well, first of all, let's talk about Ironman.
What's on earth is going on over the Ironman HQ? I'm sure many of you out there are asking
exactly the same question or perhaps a little disgruntled by their recent actions or lack
of actions for that matter. What are we talking about here? Well, obviously with the recent
events, with COVID-19, they have had to cancel or postpone a lot of their events. Understandably,
if they turn around and they just started issuing refunds left, right, and center, they
would have gone bust tomorrow. What they've done is try to postpone their events or push
athletes towards deferring their entries. That is absolutely fine, but the issue is
that they've been pushing the limits in that and actually been leaving right until the
final date, the deadline, and then re-postponing events or canceling them altogether. That
has left athletes seriously out of pocket because they haven't been able to cancel their
travel, their accommodation, and in some cases, haven't been able to get that race entry money
back altogether. In addition to all of this, the sale of Ironman
has been going through from Wanda Sports Group to Advance. In fact, on Monday, that sale
completed but again, it certainly hasn't been without its issues because it would seem that
Ironman was seriously overvalued back in 2015 when Wanda bought Ironman. They got it for
$650 million, plus the assumption of a fair amount of debt. I think it's fair to say it
wasn't the best business venture for Wanda at the time. It seems that they've been regretting
it quite a lot since and have been fairly keen to get rid of it quite recently. Obviously,
on top of all that, Andrew Messick has resigned from his position as Director of Wanda Sports
Group. He'll remain the CEO of Ironman. That's not a total surprise. I mean we are just scratching
the surface with this sale of Ironman. There is a lot going on in that.
Then there's the really big news. The more recent news that you guys will be interested
in is the cancellation of the Ironman and Ironman 70.3 World Championships. We can't
really blame Ironman for this one. It's not a total surprise. It was out of their hands
as well. Now they did try to deal with this originally and postponed the Ironman and Ironman
70.3 World Championships. They tried to postpone the Ironman World Championships from October
2020 to February 2021 still remaining in Kona. The Ironman 70.3 World Championships were
meant to take place in November in New Zealand in 2020. They were talking and there's a lot
of speculation around maybe doing them in March 2021 also in New Zealand. Well, I'm
afraid to say they are both off the cast both the Ironman and the Ironman 70.3 World Championships.
The next Ironman World Championships will actually be on October 2021. The Ironman 70.3
World Championships has had a big change there because they will no longer be in New Zealand.
They're actually going to be in St. George Utah in September 2021.
There has been a lot going on over Ironman. We would love to hear your thoughts. Is the
sale good? Have Ironman dealt with COVID-19 well? Have they simply got the monopoly? What
do you think about the cancellation of the Ironman and the Ironman 70.3 World Championships?
Are you gutted? Were you expecting it? Are you pleased? Let us know down in the comment
section below. [music]
Heather: Hi, there. I am back and I've got some news with some certainty to it, which
that feels rather nice at the moment because we're lacking that, aren't we? It is referring
to the dates for the Olympic triathlon next year. They have now been confirmed by the
Organizing Committee of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. Yes, slightly confusing because it is going
to be in 2021. Now, the men's event is been confirmed for July the 26th, the women's July
the 27th, and the mixed relay for July the 31st. You might notice the times are different
to the original timing due to the heat that they experienced at the test event. The individual
races would be starting at 6:30 in the morning, local time, and then the mixed relay will
be starting at 7:30 in the morning. There's no news yet on the para-triathlon, but I think
that will be confirmed very soon as well. More news on the racing schedule. This time
a little less certain there because the World Triathlon Executive Board have announced that
the Triathlon World Championships are actually happening this year except they haven't announced
a date or a venue. We're already at the end of July. They're leaving it later on that
one. They've confirmed that it's going to include the under-23 World Championships as
well as the Junior Worlds. They have though said that there isn't going to be a long-distance
duathlon world championship this year at all, and the world cups that were scheduled for
Brazil and China aren't happening, which isn't really that much of a surprise, I guess. But
the World Champs for the team mixed relay which is due to be in Hamburg on the 4th and
5th of September is set to go ahead. There's been a boost to triathlon, or at least
in theory, as there's a new vice-chair that's been announced for the PTO, the Professional
Triathletes Organization. Now, this is an organization that's a non-profit. It's there
to basically help raise the profile of the pros and also raise the profile of that sport
of triathlon. Chris Kermode has been announced that he's joined the board as the vice-chair.
Now he comes from years of experience in tennis. He's a professional player himself in the
late '80s. Then he's been acting as executive chairman from 2013 up to 2019. He saw tennis
really increase its prize money and also continue to increase his participation. He's hoping
he can bring that skill set and the expertise into the sports of triathlon, which he apparently
sees quite a lot of similarity with. He's actually said here that, "The PTO has many
similarities to the professional tennis which begun to boom once professionals started to
act together." He then goes on, "Given the decline in participation of sports like tennis
and golf, which is interesting, and the growth in triathlon, cycling, and other endurance
sports," he thinks there's a enormous potential to develop triathlon as a mainstream sport.
He does then say, "It will require a unified front from professionals and aligned interests
with the commercial partners." It's great to see that other sports are recognizing
triathlon. We're hopefully getting some expertise from them and we can continue to grow our
sport, at least, once all of this is over and we're back to racing again soon. Anyone
who's done the Norseman has to be slightly crazy. I mean, as we know, we've got first-hand
experience from presenter Mark doing it. Well, there's a multiple winner of Norseman, Allan
Hovda, is obviously slightly wired or likes a challenge. He decided to take on a new challenge
of the 24-hour cycling record. His target was to beat the standing Norwegian record
which was 767 K in that time. Now he has said he wanted to smash it and wanted to at least
cover 800 kilometers. Well, turned out he did smash it because he covered a whopping
884 kilometers in those 24 hours. He ended up being just a few K over a world record
which stands at 896. I mean an incredible achievement, but interesting to see if maybe
he's got a taste for that and wants to go back. Maybe he'll need a few days to recover
and forget the pain but very impressive over there.
It has been a few weeks since we last had a new shoe with some carbon in it to announce.
Well, this one has been a while in the making. We've been waiting for it but it is Swiss
engineering for you. Apparently, 100 iterations of this design and it's On that we're talking
about here. Yes, they have just announced the new Cloudboom. It's their marathon running
shoe that is carbon infused. They've designed this with the help of Chris Thompson, Great
Britain's 10K runner, and Rachel Cliff, the Canadian marathon record holder. Now, it still
has the CloudTec technology and the Speedboard running through. Now you will notice that
it's not obviously as deep or as thick as a lot of the recent carbon shoes, but it does
have a 9 mil toe drop which is a bit more than some of the other On shoes. This one
is built to last and comes in a lower price point as well. They recommended it should
last around 500 miles which, for some of these carbon shoes that are recommended around 100
to 150, and coming in at £170, it's going to be a pretty good value. I am very excited
to try that. See if maybe any of us at GTN can give it a go on a marathon PB maybe.
We've enjoyed watching plenty of e-racing throughout the lockdown and I think pros have
enjoyed racing. Well, Super League Triathlon teamed up with Zwift for their series. They've
now just taken that relationship to the next level as they have just announced the Arena
Games which is going to be a real-life virtual reality triathlon, if that makes sense. These
are going to be held on 23rd of August in Rotterdam. This is going to be their first
event. All athletes are going to be competing under one roof so they've got an Olympic-size
swimming pool for obviously the swim section. Then they're going to have their bikes on
turbos and treadmills all next door. It's still going to be in that very fast format
with changing the order of the events. They've already got the likes of Jonny Brownlee, Richard
Murray, Taylor Spivey, Rachel Klamer, all signed up for this. It sounds like the first
event is going to be just broadcast so we can watch it for free wherever we want. They're
not going to have viewers in the arena to start with, but it does sound that this could
be quite an exciting new format for a triathlon. It could be a little bit chaotic if you get
age groupers doing it, but it's going to be very exciting to see how this pans out for
pros and also what it means for the sport of triathlon in the future.
[music] Now a quick recap of the racing news. It was
just the Ironman VR 15 event we had, and it was an incredibly successful weekend for the
married couple of Jeanni Seymour and Justin Metzler who took the title of the women's
and the men's races respectively. Jeanni Seymour won in a time of 1:16:04
a convincing three minutes, just over three minutes late over Lesley Smith. Kimberly Goodell
was third and Palmira Alvarez was fourth on the women's race. Now the men's race was a
little bit closer with Justin Metzler just one minute ahead of Steven Zawaski. Sam Appleton
was third and Bradley Weiss was forth. It's time to take a look at your photos. From
what we've had sent in this week, it's clear that you guys are definitely venturing outside
for more of your training at the moment. Do share those pictures whether it's cycling,
swimming, or running. We'd love to see them. If you have got a [unintelligible 00:10:32]
or you're doing some work there or maybe you're in the Southern Hemisphere, and it's not quite
so nice outside, please share those as well and we would be delighted to share them back
with you guys next week. Well, this first one to get us started is
from Tiffany. This is a bit of a story here. Even though Ironman 70.3 was canceled just
days before the race, yes, Mark touched on that one, they decided to make the six-hour
drive and ride the course on their own, which is cool. I think a lot of people are doing
that at the moment, but it wasn't quite so straightforward. Last year she had a DNF,
so obviously, had some unfinished business and wanted to go back and prove that they
could do it. However, almost didn't get the chance as just a couple of hours from [unintelligible
00:11:13], the bike rack let go and the bike flew off the rack. Now that sounds pretty
scary moment, doesn't it, when you see your bike flying out of the view in the rearview
mirror. Unfortunately, and unbelievably, it landed on the side of the road in one piece
and just a bit of road rash. No major damage. Able to ride it the next day and she looked
delighted in that picture. What an event that is to come back a year after and get it done.
Well done to Tiffany and great photos too. Thanks for sharing those.
This one hopefully is fixed onto the bike rack a little better, this picture from Alex
in Latvia, saying, "Maybe a Mustang isn't the best vehicle for transporting your bike
but good to see that where there's a will, there's a way." Just make sure it's fixed
on properly. Tiffany learned the hard way. Finally, this picture from Switzerland sent
in by Matthew. "I'm enjoying the view as much as I am the bike. I would love to try a Canyon
Grail." He swapped to the Canyon Grail after using his canyon endurance first gravel ride.
I follow quite a few people who ride in Switzerland and it sounds like the grovel riding out there
is pretty epic. Hopefully, you had a wonderful ride. Guys, do share those. If you need the
link it's on-screen now and you can also find it in the description below.
Mark: It's me again. I'm back with the caption competition. Last week's photo was a bit of
a throwback, going back through the archive to Ironman Nice, 2016. This was age group
athlete, incredible athlete actually Paul Lunn who's part of the Zwift Triathlon Academy.
Here he is whizzing past a chap looking incredibly chilled and sedentary here in his deck chair.
It was almost like a Tour de France scene here. We had a ton of great captions coming
in. I'm going to rattle through a bunch here. Stefan Hofmeister says, "Ironman spectator's
guide: Step 1- Get nice and comfortable." Nice, Nice. Love what you did there. Danny
Staten said, "Forget Ironman, I prefer to compete as an Iron fan." Allex O'Neill, "Live
sports broadcast is getting amazing like it's happening in your front room." Ryan Ceazar
Santua said, "Guys? Is this the new Zwift Waitopia course?" Very good. Vin Lizzy though,
this is a nice effective simple one, "Both sitting down on a job." I like it. It's great.
You're the winner of the caption comp. Get in touch, we'll ping a cap out to you ASAP.
This week's photo is actually another throwback from 2013 from Norseman of the athletes on
the ferry but one in particular in a Tyr or T-Y-R wet suit looking incredibly chilled.
In fact, maybe even asleep. Leave your captions in the comment section below. That is it for
the show this week, although I have one last question for you guys out there, and this
regards to swimming. Obviously, with COVID-19, many of you have not been able to swim for
the past few months but have you been missing it? Are you dying to get back in the pool
or have you really enjoyed not having to swim, and actually, the idea of having to go back
to swimming is a little daunting and scary and you really don't want to?
We'd love to hear where you're head is at. Also, drop your thoughts in the comment section
below. If you have enjoyed today's show, do give it a thumbs up. Give it a like. We have
a ton of stuff coming up on the channel over the next week or so, including my rather crazy
Everesting run which was, in all honesty, disgusting. But you can see it all this weekend,
as well as why we take a rest day. Don't forget obviously you can get a hold of our GTN merch
over our shop which you can find the link of that on the screen right now or in the
description below. We also have our Couch to 5K that went out over the weekend where
you can see Pepper going from the couch to doing a 5K. I also have our optimum saddle
height video so do go over it and check that one out too.
[00:15:04] [END OF AUDIO]