Mark: Welcome back to the GTN show, brought to you by Amp Human. As always we hope you're
managing to keep safe and well during these tough times but Heather and myself are here
today to give your fill of triathlon and let you know what's going on in the world of triathlon
this past week. We have got Ironman just announcing their new Kona qualification schedule. World
Triathlon have also just announced some rather big changes to their calendar. Jan Frodeno,
well, he probably trumps us all with indoor training efforts. Then, Zwift have also just
announced and launched possibly the biggest triathlon spectacle of this year.
Meanwhile, we're going to be checking in on you guys and some of the videos and photos
you've been sending to us during this time and also checking in with the pros to see
what they've been getting up to during this quarantine and isolation.
[music] Heather: Hi guys. I'm going to start us off
with Tri news. We have an announcement from Ironman regarding the Kona World Championships
and qualification. I know a lot of people have been wondering, "What's going to happen
with so many events being canceled or postponed during this period?" Well, they have extended
the qualification period by just one week. Instead of ending on the 23rd of August, it's
now going to end on the 30th of August. That includes three extra races that wouldn't normally
have been in this year's qualification. That's Ironman Vici, Ironman Kazakhstan, and Ironman
Penticton. Each of those races are being given a total of 60 slots to award for qualification
places for 2020 for Kona. It really does open things up a little bit
and some events that have been postponed during this period to still fall within that qualification
period. Anytime up until the 30th of August, will have their normal qualifying slots that
they would have been given but if your event or an event you might have entered has now
been postponed beyond the 30th of August. Well, that will mean qualification at that
event will then just give you points or give you a place for the following year. It will
mean that you might have to look at your calendar and change what your plans are, if you are
still planning on going to Kona, that is. Then, there's a whole another slot for the
legacy athletes. Those athletes who have completed 12 Ironman races have the opportunity to apply
for legacy slot. That then goes into a draw when you get the opportunity to at Kona without
having to actually qualify. Well, I might have said now that any athlete on that waiting
will get a slot. That's great news for the legacy athletes but who knows what's going
to happen when it comes round to Kona itself? It's obviously not just Ironman races that
have been canceled or postponed at the moment. The World Triathlon Series has come to a halt
as has the qualification process for the Olympic Games. Obviously, the Olympics has been postponed
by a year. The qualification period has been frozen until at least the 30th of June. Well,
World Triathlon have now announced that they're coming out with a new selection criterial
policy with some amendments. Some athletes have already qualified. Some were still hoping
to. They need to make sure they've got some rules that are going to be fast to give everyone
the best possible chance and those have now been put to the IOC and the IPC and waiting
to get approved and then it will be announced to the athletes and the coaches exactly what
these new rules are going to look like. Certainly less positive news now from Ironman.
As last week they announced that there have been two drug-related suspensions from athletes
who actually tested positive at around Kona and the build-up to the World Championships
last year. First was actually a pro, Daniel Sapanov from Ukraine who has competed in three
Olympic Games 2004, 2008, and '12 and he's even won a European Cup title. He finished
24th in Kona last year but as a result of testing he showed that he had signs of EPO.
He's been given a four-year suspension. Then, there was an age grouper who also tested positive
for some anabolic steroids. That was Brazil's Rodriguez Tavares who came 2nd in his age
group of 35 to 39. Well, not great news but at least they are being found.
I don't know about you but I'm missing racing triathlon but also watching professional triathletes
race. You might be pleased to hear that Zwift are launching the new Z pro tri race series.
It's going to be a series of bike races for the pro athletes ranging from short course
all the way up to long course athletes. We're going to have a real mix in there. It's a
23-kilometer race. It's over two laps on the Astoria Line 8 circuit in Zwift New York that's
going to be happening every Wednesday afternoon. If you're watching the show just after it's
gone up it will be happening around about now. It's three o'clock British summertime
starting off with the women's race. 45 minutes later we'll have the men's race. Some of the
athletes still keeping coins to who is signing up but you can expect the likes in the women's
field of Flora Duffy, Rita Charles-Barkley and Holly Lawrence battling it out. Then,
the men's side we've heard rumors that Tim Dawn is going to be racing along with Martin
VAN RIEL and Lionel Sanders who's fresh off the win from his recent e-Racing. It's going
to be some exciting race to watch and it's planned to be happening every week, so you
put that in your diary. I know a lot of us are upping our indoor training
at the moment. But, what about doing a full Ironman in the comfort of your own home. Well,
that is what the Kona World Champion Jan Frodeno did over the Easter weekend. He had a jet
in his pool emerge to swim the last 3.8 kilometers. He jumped onto his bike for another 180 kilometers
and finished off with a 42K run for the marathon. By his own admission, he had some fairly cushty
transitions. Obviously he was at home and he wasn't racing anyone other than himself
but he still completed it in an incredible time of 8 hours thirty-three minutes and thirty-nine
seconds. Obviously that part is very impressive but
it's more the fact of the fundraising that was behind it. He was trying to raise money
for the local health care institutes in Girona where he is currently based as well as the
Laureus Sports Foundation. When we last checked he had raised over €200,000, over £175,000.
I think that number was continuing to rise. A really great effort by Jan in both senses.
I just think that a lot of people are keen to really push themselves both mentally and
physically at the moment with various challenges. We have seen many marathons have been run
in backyards or triathlons have been set up. Some people have even run a marathon on their
balcony. Well Mayank Vaid who lives in Hong Kong had taken it to another level as has
done a triathlon Everesting. Climbed the height of Mt. Everest throughout a triathlon. Obviously,
he wouldn't have gained any altitude throughout the swim but then he used the bike and the
run to complete this mammoth task. It took him an elapsed time of over 55 hours. He did
have friends to help him along the way. It's still an impressive achievement nonetheless.
Let's finish up with a new piece of tech we spotted called GearTracking. Now, it's an
app that you have on your phone and then can be synced to your normal training software.
It helps you to actually measure the mileage or the time that you're using certain pieces
of kit and as triathletes we're obviously using huge amounts of caffeine and it can
be sometimes quite hard to know when something might need replacing or repairing especially
when it comes to running shoes. Well, these will do the hard work for you and it sounds
quite interesting. Something worth looking to.
[music] Speaker 2: It's now time for the GTN poll
and off the back of the news from the Ironman World Championships has now extended qualification
period. We thought we would ask you, are you still going to try and qualify for Kona if
you were already? You can answer a simple yes or no by clicking on the poll just up
here and do leave your comments in the comments section below as to whether your race plans
might be changing as a result of what we're going through right now.
Anyway, now it's time for the results from last week's poll. When off the back of Lionel
winning that eRace on Zwift, we asked you, do you think he would win the same race in
real life. It really got the comments going and most of you saying that [unintelligible
00:08:05] does play a major part in bike racing and yes, I agree. The poll reflected that
75% of you said, "No, he wouldn't win the same race in real life." 25% of you said yes.
[music] Mark: Well, back in now for the race news
which we should probably rename to the Virtual Race News given, well, that's what we've got.
But, some really exciting racing to be fair. This weekend we have the INEOS Race which
was closed to the INEOS team. We have pretty much every member of the team racing there
on Zwift up Alp to Zwift. It was actually Rowan Dennis that made an early move pushing
an impressive 450 watts to take the victory although he did have to put a little bit of
a surge in part way up as he noticed he had a certain Cameron Worth clinging on his wheel
in second place. Knowing that camera can push a pretty high wattage consistently for a long
period of time he knew he had to make his move early on. He put that surge and then
it enabled him to settle back in that constant TT power that Rowan is very good at. He took
the win, Cam Worth had to settle for fourth in the end but still flipping impressive considering
who he was up against, notably with Chris Froome back in 2 minutes and 33 seconds down
on Dennis. In also other virtual racing news I thought
we'd catch up on the Ironman Virtual Racing this week actually over the Olympic distance
5,150 format. Now, this was actually open to not just pros but also the amateurs and
age groupers. We had 23,000 people signed up to this from over 130 different countries.
The format for this was actually a 3-kilometer run, 40-kilometer bike, and a 10-kilometer
run. You could that in whatever order you wanted. You could do it back to back or with
a nice break between you. You could do the bike first. Whatever you like, the only criteria
is that you did it between Friday at 6:00 PM GMT time through till Sunday at midnight
GMT time. In the pro racing, we did have a very exciting race, both on the women's and
men's side. It was Lauran Brandon that took the win and very closely Chelsea Sudara just
behind Michelle Vesta B, and then a little bit further back. We had Rachel Olsen. On
the men's side. Now we just had literally a minute or so separating all four of these
men, Sam Long took the win, Sam Appleton in second, Timothy Donnel in third and David
McNamee in forth. Well, just when you thought they couldn't possibly be any more virtual
racing, super league have stepped in with an all star lineup in the Swift classics races,
along with some of cycling's leaks. Now we also have the likes of Alistair Brownlee,
Christian Blumenfeld, Vincent Louie, and Rachel Climber, all getting stuck in just to name
a few. Now this actually starts last week with the
men's race. It was over 24.7 kilometer course featuring the famous Box Hill climb. It was
Alistair Brownlee we actually saw towards the front of the race for a majority of it
and instigated the main breakaway, which also saw Martin van Reil making his way into it.
As the pace intensified, the two of them rather tactfully sat in, whether that was optional
or not, I don't know, but they did do very well. It was Martin Van Reil that came out
on top, released from the triathletes finished just outside the top 10 and 11th. Brownlee
was in 34. St. Louis finished in 58, Ben Knute 71st, and then Hayden Wilde in 80th. Over
on the women's side well, they had a pretty tough time because we had two time Olympian
turn up, Ashley [unintelligible 00:11:37] she absolutely blew the field apart, so much
so that there was about a minute 20 between first and 10th place. It was the Italian Ilaria
Zane who managed to make her way into the chase pack at one point [unintelligible 00:11:50]
around 20 seconds on the lead group actually. Again, in the final couple of kilometers,
that race was blown apart and Ilaria Zae even managed to finish in 26. Leoni Peri-op finished
in 40th. Cassandra broke ground in 47th, Georgia Taylor Brown on 65th and Taylor Scobey in
81st, but if you are interested in watching these races, you can watch them live. The
men are back in action on the 17th of April, but this time it's going to be in a team format
in the Richmond challenge. [music]
Mark: Well, I'm the lucky one that gets to go through all your photos and videos that
you've been sending into us. You have not disappointed. We've got loads of fun home
improvisation for the training whern you were in this self isolation, lockdown, whatever
you've got in your current country or state. Now Mattias here said, "finding a way to get
some swim sessions done". Now, all I've got to say is got to be careful though, with diving
into swimming pool with an elastic band attached to you could go very badly wrong, but I love
this next one. This one comes in from Pablo, says he's from London and he's done a little
stop motion movie for us. [music]
Speaker: Ref, drafting. [music]
Mark: Well, we love stop motion here on GTN. Thanks ever so much for sending that in and
going to all that effort. We're trying to find a bit of time to make our own little
stop motion triathlon video. Hopefully stay tuned, if you fancy getting creative, make
your own, send it in again using that photo uploader. Next one here from Junior, and he's
from Newport beach and said, we usually do a local Sunday morning coffee shop run, but
with the safer at home restrictions, we had a little family time in the garage and of
course catching up on the latest GTN episode. I assume that's his partner and dog alongside
him there. That looks like a lovely set up actually. Next one from Royston he's coming
from Camberley [unintelligible 00:14:54] run as per the guidelines and chasing the 5k PB.
Said a long way to go. I assume he's perhaps following our 5K challenge,
whether it's mine or have us, I don't know, but he's posted a 25:58. Just under the 26
minutes of fantastic effort, I could see also got some gloves on if you go through Gates.
Pretty good. I've seen quite a few people doing that for their runs for here in the
UK we do one bit of exercise per day. Not a bad idea if you're going through gates and
next one, brilliant went from Vernon. He's said he's just locked in his backyard running
with Perelli and that's the tire I'm guessing. That's a good idea. Yes. Putting a bit of
resistance on the running. Final one though, and this one really made me chuckle. I love
this one. It's come from Andreas. I'm not sure the pronunciation of this Lörzweiller
He said, my wife surprised me with this beer for my first Ironman virtual racing. As you
can see, it says Ironman 70.3 Lörzweiller. Where he lives, and it's got his name, number
one, male category, 30 to 34. It's brilliant, such a good job. Shame the ink slightly ran
out on the on the red, but I love the effort you've gone to. Thanks ever so much for sending
all of those in. Please keep them coming. Use the photo uploader link is onscreen right
now, or you can find it in the description below.
Heather: Right. It's now time for us to get nosy and see what the pros are up to and we're
keeping an eye on their social accounts and Dakota selection from Instagram. We've already
mentioned Jan Frodeno with his mega challenge, but just before that, he did announce new
bike day and we love a new bike here at GTN. This one is pretty special. He does have the
three gold dots for his three wins at Kona. You can take a closer look at that one in
your own time, but it is obviously the Canyon CF SLX, TT bike, and it looks fast even on
the wahoo kicker. Adding a bit of lightheartedness, again, I know I included a similar post last
week, but this is a new one from Nikki Bartlett. She is still going in her Spiderman run suit.
I just think it's great to see something lighthearted and making people smile.
Great work, Nikki do keep it up and keep sharing those posts. Also just sharing your energetic
vibes you go out on your runs. This final one for this week comes from Richard Murray
and his new training set up in the Netherlands with his wife, Rachel Climber. He has a pretty
impressive barn where proper barn doors are opened up to the countryside and he's got
all sorts in there. I think he'll be all right in this lockdown for the time being, an incredible
setup. [music]
Heather: Moving on to GTN's caption competition, and we scraped all the way back to 2008 for
Iron Man New Zealand for last week's caption photo. It looks like a good pass. I liked
it. There was a nice selection of caption suggestions and I've narrowed it down to these
four. We have Amandine Durey who shouts, "No, they touched my face". I would be the same
with cobwebs. I hear you on that one. We also have Beachfinner, "Oh no. Which one is the
right finish line?". Yes, it could be confusing. Then Lord Bert comes in with, "I was doing
good on the run, but then got a little tied up", but our winner this week goes to Constantin
Drucklien says, "when you try to train with multiple elastic bands at the same time."
I think there's quite a few people doing some elastic band workouts at home. I'm sure people
could relate to that one, but well done Constantin do get in touch and we will get a GTN cap
out to you. For this week's caption photo, we've gone even further back into the archives,
all the way to 2003 for the World Triathlon Champs in Queenstown.
Well do leave your caption suggestions in the comment section below for your chance
to win a GTN swim cap. We might be coming towards the end of this week's show, but there's
still plenty more to look forward to this week. Mark's doing a feature on why you should
keep a training diary. You've also got our lives, we've got GTN track Thursday when I'll
be doing a live run session, which I would love you to join me with. That's going to
be Thursday evening and on Tuesday evening, British summer time, Mark will be doing the
GTN cycle commute as well. With all of this indoor training, you might be in looking for
some new indoor training kit. We'll check out the GTN shoppers. There are some brilliant
indoor training bundles to be found there. If you've enjoyed this, give us a like, and
subscribe to our channel. Before you go, there's a couple of videos that you might like to
take a look at. One is are cushioned running shoes making you injured? You can find that
just down here. If you want to see an in-depth analysis of my swimming stroke with my old
swim coach, you can find that just here. [00:19:37] [END OF AUDIO]