- This is the GTN Show,
and oh boy, did you see the racing at the weekend?
- Yeah, I did.
There were some exciting stuff.
I mean, Daniela certainly got pushed.
And then there was that head to head battle
with Andreas Dreitz and Alistair Bronwlee,
which was pretty exciting.
- Yeah, it sure was.
Well, we're gonna be catching you up on everything
that went down there over the weekend,
as well as discussing whether swimmers
have an advantage in triathlon,
or cyclists, or runners.
- Well, I think we're both gonna hope
it's swimming, aren't we?
Coming from a swimming background.
It's gonna be interesting to see that one.
But on top of that, we've got some tech news,
including a new release from the Nike 4%,
plus plenty of your brilliant photos you sent in.
(fast-paced music)
- Well, as discussed, there was
some incredible racing over the weekend.
We had some super fast swimmers stringing out the field
in the Swim WTS Bermuda.
We had Andrew Starykowicz laying the hammer down
at Ironman Texas.
We also had Laura Philipp drop an incredible run split
at Ironman 70.3 Marbella.
Which leads us on to discuss which is the best discipline,
well, to produce the biggest impact during a triathlon.
Is it best to be a super swimmer,
super biker or a super runner?
- [Heather] Well, it's an interesting debate.
And, obviously, the idea is to be super at all of them,
but that's not always necessarily gonna be possible.
And we do see some athletes, you know,
crushing one of the disciplines
and sometimes they're actually able to take that through
and take the win from being exceptional
in just one of the three.
- [Mark] Yeah absolutely,
we kind of discussed this a little bit before,
where we've talked about which is the best
discipline to enter triathlon from.
But this is a whole different topic
because now we're talking about winning.
And I guess it comes down to the type
of racing we're doing as well.
- Well yeah, I mean, take ITU racing, for example,
and, you know, no matter how an amazing runner you are,
if you're not in that group at the end,
you're unlikely to be able to run through,
so you've gotta get,
be a good enough swimmer to get into the pack,
to then have the run at the end.
- [Mark] Yeah, it's almost race over
if you're not there after the swim.
But in Ironman racing, you've got a little bit
more time to play with.
So if you maybe come out
a little bit further down on the swim,
which Lionel Sanders tends to happen for him.
Well there, maybe not the best example after Kona,
but he can then bike his way back through
and really cause some damage.
- [Heather] Yeah, but I guess it depends how much you expel
by doing that and how much energy you kind of gonna put in.
Then I guess, it leads us on to the type of race,
or even the terrain of the race
because if it's a hilly bike course,
then it's going to lend itself more to cyclists
than a flat one, when if you're in the pack
on a non-draft legal race, then, you know,
you maybe don't need to be as strong a cyclist
and you can save it to the run.
- Absolutely, and it's not just us thinking about this
either because there's been, well,
countless governing bodies out there,
national teams thinking about this,
I know British triathlon, for one.
They have actually looked into this and in the past,
they really looked for strong swimmers
to come into triathlon with the hope that
they sort of teach them a little bit of biking and running,
and hope that they'll go and win some medals.
But they actually had something called,
the Triathlon Gold Program,
a really imaginative name there.
But they basically sourced really strong runners,
international runners, brought them into the sport,
trained them up on the swim and the bike.
And actually, Adam Bowden and Mark Buckingham
are two of those athletes.
So it's obviously worked out pretty well for them.
- Yeah, I mean, it starts in your ITU, but then,
I guess, I think we're seeing a bit of a shake up
in long distance racing because, you know, formally,
it has been the likes of Rinny Carfrae,
who maybe the swim isn't as strong.
But you've got Lucy Charles in there now mixing it up.
And I think some of the long distance athletes
are re-assessing their swimming and how important that is.
So it kind of comes in waves as well,
as the athletes change.
- That's a, that's a really good example
and that's definitely happened for Daniela Ryf.
You've seen her having to focus on her swim a little bit.
- Yeah exactly.
- Well, we would like to throw this out to you here now.
So we are asking you which sport
is better for the triathlon.
Simply, is it swim, bike, or run?
And we're gonna be pretty brutal here.
There are no fancy answers, just pick one of them.
And you can enter that poll by just clicking up here.
- Well, I think it's quickly time to have a look
at last week's poll, when we asked,
Is running a marathon healthy?
The results are in, and just 3% of you said
Yes, it's great physically,
19% said no way,
20% said yes, great for mental wellness,
and then 56% of you said great for both.
I think, running a marathon wins.
(upbeat music)
Alright, moving on to Tri News
and we have spotted a new shoe from Nike.
Now, it's pretty similar to the Nike 4%,
but this one's a bit more of a mouthful.
It is, I'm gonna actually have to check the screen here.
It's the Nike Zoom X Vaporfly Next%.
And there's quite a few sort of tweaks that they've made,
and they've had the help of Eliud Kipchoge and Sir Mo Farah
to develop this into a bit more of a racing shoe.
- [Mark] They got more of a more breathable upper.
They've done some offset lacing
to relieve pressure on the top foot.
They've got a thin foam pod for the achilles,
to relieve any pressure on the heel.
- [Heather] Yeah, I think one of the, the, the
most significant differences
is the change in the heel to toe offset.
So it's gone from 11 mil to 8 mil,
which is quite a bit of a drop,
I think you'd really notice that if you were racing in it.
- [Mark] Yeah, absolutely.
Apparently better traction and tread on the outer sole.
However, they have, well,
retained some of the same properties
with the carbon fiber plates, so it's the same length,
same stiffness, and with all of these updates,
they've actually maintained the weight of the shoe.
So, yeah, really exciting.
There's a lot of buzz about this shoe.
- There is, and I think even more so after the weekend,
because at London Marathon, it was,
well it broke the London Marathon record didn't it?
In the Men's race, I think Eliud Kipchoge
was wearing this new shoe, and broke the record.
It was a huge event, more than 40,000 runners
took to the streets of London.
We spotted a few triathletes amongst them as well.
- Right, our next bit of news comes from Garmin,
as they release their brand new head units for cycling.
We've got the Garmin Edge 530 and the 830.
Now, these have come with loads of new features,
the 530 and the 830 both have built in maps.
The 830 having, well, turn by turn navigation,
but some really exciting new features.
We've now got Instant Detection.
We've also got something called Climb Pro,
so it can tell you how far you've got left on a climb
and the average grading of that climb.
- That'd be nice.
- But the bit that I really like,
and this is probably more relevant to our mountain bikers,
and maybe gravel bikers out there,
it will tell you how many jumps you've made during a ride,
how far you go on those jumps and your hang time.
- Whoa, that could be dangerous.
It could encourage, like you know,
even bigger jumps, couldn't it?
From maybe pushing you outside of your comfort zone.
- I'd like to see it on your TT bike.
- Yeah, I was gonna say, I don't think there's any risk,
even on a mountain bike of me leaving the ground.
Not intentionally anyway (laughs).
But in other news, we've got a new
partnership from Zipp and Zwift.
They have created the new Zipp High Speed Desert Challenge,
which is gonna be on the new part of the Watopia Course,
which is the, the flat desert section.
And you've got a chance to win some Zipp wheels.
- Yeah we've got the 858's for both front and the rear.
But even for those actually just completing this,
they get the new kit, which comes with that.
- [Heather] Yeah it's pretty cool,
so it's this weekend coming, it's the 4th and 5th of May,
and I think it starts at 9am Central European Time
on the 4th of May, and runs through until 8:30am
on the 6th of May,
and there's actually races or events going every 30 minutes.
- [Mark] Yeah, but actually, to actually get those wheels
you don't have to win the race.
- [Heather] (laughs) Maybe we should keep that one quiet.
- [Mark] Yeah, I know (laughs).
- Cruising along on the weekend.
- Don't have to work quite so hard for it,
but it will be allocated to a random person
within a level A, level B, and level C events.
- Yeah, yeah.
(upbeat music)
- It's now time for the GTN caption competition,
with your chance to win a GTN cap,
and the picture we had last week
was from the finish line at Xterra
and there was a few plays on that one.
We've had some great suggestions in.
We had Gabby Jackson saying what an X-Treme way to finish.
Denver Hoggart, putting the X in X-Terra.
- [Mark] John Edward though said,
damn, couldn't find my run legs today.
- (laughs) But this week our winner is
Nick Goldston, who comes up with the caption,
No, I forgot to start my Garmin.
I think we can all relate to that feeling, can't we.
Well, well done Nick, get in touch,
and we will send you out your GTN swim cap.
- Well, this week's caption comp photo is
from Ironman 70.3 Marbella, and it is from the podium.
It's Alistair Brownlee opening his bottle of champagne
all over Andy Dreitz.
- [Heather] Yeah, it looks like Dreitz is trying
to save his champagne for later there, doesn't he.
He's kind of like.
- No inappropriate comments here.
(laughs)
- Yeah, do get involved in the comment section below.
Yeah, look forward to hearing them.
(upbeat music)
- Well, we said we had
a lot of race results for you
and I'm gonna kick off with
probably the most anticipated of them all.
And that one was Ironman Texas.
Now this was a big race.
We had a stacked Pro field.
In the Women's field we had none other than Daniela Ryf,
and unsurprisingly,
she was the clear favorite for that race.
But it wasn't easy for her,
because she was joined by Jocelyn McCauley
for practically the whole race.
They came out more or less neck and neck out of the swim.
And a rather smart move by Jocelyn,
she allowed Daniela to sit on the front,
on the bike, and just power away,
and therefore saving a little bit of energy,
which meant that Jocelyn had a
little bit more going on to the run.
She managed to pull ahead of Daniela,
and I actually saw that gap open up
to around two and a half minutes, if not more.
Now, Daniela worked really hard
in the latter stages of that run
and she managed to reel her back in,
and actually only passing Jocelyn
with four miles to go.
Now, Daniela went on, obviously to win the race.
Jocelyn took second,
and then it's Jenny Seymour that took third.
Over in the Men's field it was Andrew Starykowicz
that really laid the show on for us.
He posed an incredible bike split of 4:02:56,
coming into transition with almost a nine minute advantage
on the second athlete, which was Patrik Nielsen.
Now, Patrik ran amazingly
to come through at mile eleven,
and pass Andrew Starykowicz.
Then at mile sixteen David Pless
also passed Andrew Starykowicz.
And Patrik Nielsen went on to take that win,
David Plese took second,
and Andrew Starykowicz took third.
Right, our next race up is Ironman 70.3 Marbella,
which Alistair Brownlee led
the swim out in for the Men's race.
Although with a number of athletes in hot pursuit.
One of which is Andi Dreitz, which we all know
is an absolute powerhouse on the bike.
So much so, by 48k into the bike
he had a three minute fifty advantage
on the second athlete in the field,
and over eight and a half minutes on Alistair Brownlee.
Although we did find out from Andi Dreitz's Instagram feed
that Alistair actually suffered mechanical during the race.
Andi continued that form on to take the win,
and amazingly, Alistair Brownlee
ran his way back through to second,
with a 1:11:03 half marathon run split,
and in third it was Domenico Passuello.
Whilst over in the Women's race, it was Laura Philipp
actually that came out the swim with just over
a two minute deficit on the fastest swimmer,
but took that back by half way through the bike
and rather convincingly went on to take the win overall.
In second it was Nina Derron,
and in third, it was Marta Bernardi.
We're now moving over to short course racing
with WTS Bermuda, where we had
less than ideal conditions for the Women's race.
It was Katie Zaferes that was really on fire today.
She managed to form a small breakaway group
coming out of the swim onto the bike
with Jess Learmonth and Lotte Miller,
and they gained a two minute twenty advantage going into T2,
and then Katie posted a 34:46 10k run split
to take a very impressive win.
Jess Learmonth hung on for second,
and in third it was Joanna Brown.
Whilst over in the Men's race it was
Vincent Luis that really tried to string that swim out,
and he did a very impressive job of it.
Although, he was joined by around
twenty other athletes going on to the bike,
and that group only got larger as the bike went on.
But going into the final lap,
a small breakaway was attempted,
although it didn't really materialize to much.
So it really came down to a run race,
and it pretty much came down to a sprint finish, in fact.
Dorian Coninx managed to edge ahead
of the others to take the win,
and it was Javier Gomez who was back into ITU racing
that managed to pip Gustav Iden for second place,
and last year's podium finish, Gustav, took third.
Well, I said we had a ton of race results
for you from this weekend, so we're gonna rattle
through some of the remaining races now.
So we've got Challenge Cancun,
which was won by Andy Potts in the Men's race,
with Cody Beals in second, and Ben Hoffman in third.
In the Women's it was won by Ellie Salthouse,
Mirinda Carfrae in second,
and then Yvonne Van Vlerken in third.
And then over at Challenge Gran Canaria,
now this was won rather impressively in the Men's race
by Pieter Heemerych, with Manuel Küng in second,
and Nan Olivieras in third.
Whilst over in the Women's race,
Emma Pallant had quite a bad mechanical on the bike
but still managed to run herself back through,
to take the win overall.
And then we had Tessa Kortekaas in third,
and Celine Schaerer in third.
And then over at the ITU World Duathlon Champs,
now this was won by Benjamin Choquert from France,
Emilo Martin from Spain,
and Angelo Vandercasteele in third.
Whilst over in the Women's race we had
quite an exciting race going on there.
A lot of chopping and changing between the leaders.
It was eventually won
by previous 2014 ITU World Duathlon Champ, Sandra Levenez.
And in second we had
the previous 2018 ITU World Duathlon Champ, Sandrina Illes,
and in third, Garance Blaut.
(upbeat music)
- Alright, it's now time to share some of
the great photos you guys have sent in this week.
We've got a little bit of a cat theme
in our first two, actually,
this one has been sent in by Jack,
and it says Neil Pryde, that he's got on the wahoo,
but then he says,
getting ready for his pain cave experience,
but the treadmill was taken.
Would she really want to train with me?
She looks pretty content that cat, doesn't she.
- Yeah, I'd hate to know what happened if you
- (laughs) Oh, Mark.
- But Neil Pryde, we don't get many of them.
I'm just changing the subject really quickly. (laughs)
Neil Pryde is actually a really interesting brand.
Wind surfing, kite surfing brand,
and they did bikes a few years back.
I'm not sure if they still make them but, cool.
- [Heather] Yeah, shame we've not got
a closer look at that one.
But now moving on, we've got another cat
taking a chill out in the pain cave here.
- [Mark] Yeah, this one was sent in by Sarah Kaye,
as well as the cat, she's also got a Specialized shiv,
very nice colours as well,
and also another Specialized bike behind.
I can't quite see what model it is,
but I think it's the Dolce.
- [Heather] Yeah, she's very prepared,
with the amount of tires and then inner tubes.
I think there's a box of Conti inner tubes, I mean,
with boxes in, and then a whole pile of them on the side.
So, planning on doing some outdoor
riding as well, I'm guessing.
- Yeah, very cool. Moving on, we've got sent,
a photo sent in by Andrew,
and this is from Stornaway in Scotland.
- [Heather] Yeah, I bet Fraser wishes he
was here to talk about this one.
This is pretty tough. The Western Isles Triathlon Club
have had their first Super Sprint already in Stornaway.
The sea temperature was 6 degrees centigrade,
air temperature 5 degrees, and winds of 15 miles an hour.
All very cold, they say.
- They're pretty tough up there, aren't they.
- That is hardcore (laughs).
- Yeah, impressive stuff. Hats off to you guys.
This next one's really cool, I love this.
This was sent in by Matthew,
this is his Argon 18 E 117 TT Bike,
but he's just finished taking it apart,
and completely stripping the stock paint off,
and rebuilding it with very nice paintwork.
And he's got his HED Jet 9 front and rear on,
and a new cockpit, all, so he's gone for the, you know,
the full deal here.
- [Heather] It looks a pretty aggressive position as well,
doesn't it? Pretty speedy on that.
- A big thumbs up on that paintwork there. Nice work.
- Very nice, well our final one comes in from Tom Kalutsa,
and this is two shots of his pain cave.
It looks like he might be a bit more of
a mountain biking fan than a road bike there,
with his, what's on his screen.
- [Mark] But yeah, he's got a Orbea road bike,
and yeah, I'm just amazed how many people have treadmills.
It seems like every other photo sent in,
someone has a treadmill.
- I know, I'm super jealous.
- Yeah, I want one. Well, that is it for the show this week.
Please do hit that thumbs up button if you enjoyed it,
and if you want to see more from GTN,
just click on the globe and subscribe.
- And if you like the look of our kit,
including these jumpers or the new hoodies,
then do check the link
for the GTN shop to find those.
And we've got some exciting videos coming up this week,
including a vlog from my Brighton Marathon experience,
I might be a little bit biased on that.
But we've got some great videos that are out already,
including how to find that triathlon life balance,
which includes some great info
from Matt Dixon, you can find that just here.
- Yeah, if you'd like to see a very exciting video
we did with David McNamee,
we were invited along to the velodrome for his aero testing,
so you can see that, by clicking just down here.