Unless you have better info, Noodt was not “guided” into the finish chute by Dylan. the electronic screen board, which Dylan was standing beside, showed names and ‘to finish’ rather than Lap 7. Either way, still a chunk of responsibilty on the organisation.
I have some difficulty with the idea that any top athlete doesn’t know how far to the finish. I’m aware Noodt did not wear a watch: for 18km this is unprofessional, imho. Did Noodt really think, before he came in sight of the lap/finish divide/cones that he only had a few hundred metres left? What if he’d been shoulder to shoulder with Dickinson, say? Did Pearson just run past without looking at the board or did he just sensibly, professionally ignore (he did run straight past, resolutely).
I agree. Once the organisation on course guides you to do 7 laps instead of the 8 laps required, the athletes are in a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” scenario. If they follow instructions they risk being DQ. But if they go on ignoring instructions, they may face an uninspected situation that led the organisation to decide to change the course last minute for one reason or another. To put blame on the athletes for following instructions on course is unreasonable.
And DQing all athletes which did 7 laps, PTO was risking a big revolt from athletes I think, and possible further actions to prove they were instructed to finish after 7 laps, leading to an even bigger and longer s…show. Luckily the 3 athletes agreed to go to lap 7 standings, and the best possible option for the majority of those involved.
I have just listened to the part of the Podcast again.
With three laps to go the counter started working, it shows how many laps to go and go to finish when you are on the last lap. Mika believed he had 4 to go, so he started asking officials and his Team, everyone had the info of the Tracker which was wrong and so they told him 3 laps to go. With one (2) laps to go Dylan stood there and he asked him whether it was one lap and Dylan was like yeah, yeah one lap to go. Right before the Finish he asked Dylan again and he reassured him that he should go to finish.
I dont know what was going on in Morgan but he probably was locked in didn’t ask around and just trusted his count.
Mika never Rides with a bike computer or runs with a watch in races to not get carried away by the numbers.
Athletes were told exactly how far the run was (slightly less than 18km). If started on exit from transition, as most Strava uploaders manage, the 14.x km or the 52:xx showing on his watch would’ve made it clear that the counter or other direction was wrong. Noodt averages 60 minutes for T100 18kms, so 52:xx would be an excellent ‘clue’.
Pearson was out of sight of Noodt so the latter could not see him carry on. I think it’s unreasonable to ask athletes to count 8 laps of either bike or run with any assurance so there ought to be a fail-safe mechanism for giving them that info (and a bloke counting isn’t fail-safe). But an athlete has to consider whether this is possibly an issue and mitigate the risk. The best self-provided mitigation is a bike computer or watch (for the run).
Wearing a watch for swimming (unless under wetsuit sleeve) is not a good idea swimming in close proximity with others. And wearing it on the bike is so not aero (for Tim).
here is the thing everybody got it wrong , super smart commentator , race director , athlete manager . you can be the pencil pusher and be adamant to follow the rules , but it was jason west ( who did the full 8 laps ) that suggested to have a vote on it.
Remember, the athlete board is an advisory board and they’re pretty meaningless at this stage of PTOs life cycle. There is the executive board which is like four or five people chaired by Chris Kermode and there isn’t an “athlete” on the board itself.
I can’t find an Athlete Manager listed by them anywhere. I did see PTO hired a CCO in March rights after their Series C funding closed…spending a lot of money on the C-Suite.
I mean there is no fail-safe 100% system. Tecnhology can fail (it did : lap counter), humans can fail (they did, athletes and race organisers on hand miscounting).
Going by what the watch says is what got Wilde in trouble in the first place, so wearing a watch and abiding by it isn’t the solution or mitigation. Also GPS can go nuts sometimes, it happens, I wouldn’t trust what a watch says over what the actual organisation tells you on course. Mika wearing a watch wouldn’t have changed anything.
If you were in his shoes, racing for 2nd place, the 3rd a minute behind, and after multiple times you asked, they told you to head for the finish, would you trust your watch and blow them off and just continue running ? Or start arguing, show them your watch and debate on the sidelines over the number of laps you still have to do ? I sure wouldn’t, my brain wouldn’t be working properly. As Vince posted, they say go to finish, I go to finish !
Whatever system one comes up with a watch (look at time, look at km, lap the watch at each lap and look ath the lap), you can have an issue with (GPS problem, involuntary click of the watch button, simple math for calculation time being extremely difficult under extreme stress, etc…).
The athletes that did 8 will likely tell a different story, if the board was not accurate right from the start and they knew they needed to carefully and accurately count their own laps instead as it couldn’t be trusted even when/if came on board. They had known for the 6 laps that it hadnt been accurate, used their common sense as had been counting their laps. Chances are after realizing it was wrong they never bothered to look again, why would you if you were trusting you knew how to count to 8
I’ve been to far too many international races that what they tell athletes in the meetings and what the actual distance is off. Hell Wtcs for years was well known for “short” run courses yet always what do you know 10km. Every coach worth their job would roll the run courses regularly to know the actual distance.
To WT’s credit I think most of the courses are much more accurate these days than years ago.
i have no idea to be fair ,but what i had found said he was on the pto board of directors ( as my copy and paste cleary said, if you actually cared to read, and not as ususal answered with your pre canned replies) . that is very different than the athletes board ( which as you say is really a nothing burger)
he is definitley the pro liasion.
Is it canned. I found an article that said he was board secretary, but that was from 2021. In 2019 and 2020 he was a member of the board when they were shitty and sending open letters to Ironman.
The current board of PTO does not have athlete directors. They have an athlete board which is pretty irrelevant to the business and has been stagnant in membership for awhile.
The Board based on what I have seen most recently is:
Chris Kermode - Executive Chairman
Sam Renouf - CEO
Peter Hutton
Jennifer Ninmo
Zibi Szlufcik (?)
All of the above is pretty opaque as they don’t update things. But there hasn’t been athletes on the board of the PTO itself since they created the separate athlete board. They also don’t have an employee directory like an NFL team does so when people use first names on a message board it gets uh odd…because there are more than few Dylans in professional triathlon.
Things the pro series did: give us stacked start lines more often.
Things the pro series did not do: create any sort of season long narrative.
The rest of the pod can be summed up as “thank you T100 for forcing IM get their shit together and take care of the pros the way they always should have.”