The Crank
The first week of Ironman racing has left a few mouths open.
- Luke McKenzie's implosion - The hard working McKenzie got 100km into the bike when it all went pear shaped. He went from having a good day into spectator as he looked to preserve his legs for an up and coming battle in China. A tough way for him to start the season. But not the end of the world.
- The more interesting thing to come out of this was McKenzie's dislike of the WTC's new 8% rule. Seems he is not the only one.
- On the 8% rule one of the gang here in the office compared it to the Tour de France where the field has to finish within a certain percentage of the winners time or be eliminated. Is this not the same thing? Any thoughts on this would be appreciated.
- Ironman Cologne. Saw it advertised the other day. Are you kidding me? what does it smell like? sweat and sports drink? or even worse?
- Brownlee floored - The wunderkid from Great Britain will delay his start to the season with stress fractures. Hmm anyone else seeing the wear and tear on a young body here? The big question has always been how his body will hold up to the rigours of the sport. We are seeing how at the moment.
- Performer of the week would have to be Marino Vanhoenacker. Keep an eye on this guy.
- On our continuing eye on the Winter Olympics Alyssa Camplan's commentary.. oh my... lets say as a commentator she was a great aerial skier!
- The last word on the Winter Games, the four man bobsled is insane. They should replace the sleds with station wagons... they may be shorter.
Comments (9)
by scratching my head, 04 March 2010yep - Granger gets 17K and 2nd place gets 10K.. Now tell me again how Biscay wont be pissed???????? And as for you Dave, thats spoken like a man who wasnt there. 2 draft busters for 180km, no closed roads and 500 athletes. Trust me - they had a draft buster with them 5% of the time. She IS a great athlete, im not disputing that, its the way she goes about it. My tip - were about to see the age group ranks getting a whole faster, with plenty of fringe athletes dropping back.
by Troy, 03 March 2010I saw the race report from Biscay earlier today and she was very upbeat about it all, particularly considering she now still needs to qualify for Kona somewhere else AND didn't get paid!
by DG, 03 March 2010What I am interested to know is where the unpaid prize money is going? As she saw it the amount isn't being distributed to the 1st/2nd placegetters. Are WTC absorbing it? Any one shed some light on this one?
Surely TDF is a team game, IM is not. A placing is a placing and you should get paid. Did Stephen Bradbury have an 8% rule?
by Paul Daly , 02 March 2010Wow that's a big call on granger.. from another camp maybe ?!?!?
by dave, 02 March 2010scratching my head you're a tool! how could she draft for the entire way as the women's leader and not get pinged for drafting? what the hell? it happens that she can smash anyone on the bike and you want to bring her down...
by funky gibbon, 02 March 2010gee whiz it's not as if these guys are top 100 golfers earning $1m plus a year, if these people that we admire (and i personally am amazed by) don't get some kind of return for there effort surely the sport can't grow at that level, i think we need to remove some of the macho nonsense, i know for a fact that my partner and friends love to come to ironman to support the age groupers but the pro race keeps them really "into it" and helps to motivate all concerned!
by scratching my head?, 01 March 2010phill, i know im going to get lambasted here for this, but i need to get this off my chest. If i were Hillary Biscay, when i got to the finish line at IMM i would have snotted Granger one for stinging me out of my share of the prize money, with the new 8% rule because for the umtpeenth time her in her career Granger drafted her ass off on the bike. I was there, i watched it. 7 bike lengths my ass. Justin rode up to her at 8km into the bike and led her round in a group of 4 until the 140km mark when he dropped her on a hill, giving the other girls no hope. The other girls in the race had no chance, and every time i saw them, they were riding on thier own. why do people giving this lady credit for this style of racing? Are people really that naive? My respect goes to 2nd - 10th Place in the pro female.
by Kon Troversial, 01 March 2010Respect to the Belgium winner in the mens race - he was an absolute machine.
With regards to the "8%" rule....
by whiteline, 01 March 2010They key word here is "professional". In order to get paid for their performance, these athletes must race at a "professional" level, and it is only fair and reasonable that they perform at this acceptable level in order to gain some financial reward. For too long, these self-style "professional athletes" have been rewarded by their mediocre performances, and rewarded financially results that place them amidst the top-level age-group athletes.
The fact that it is a certain percentage of the winner's time, rather than an absolute amount, takes into account that some races are "harder" than others. By the way, every race should be "hard", if you are a "professional".
I have to agree with McKenzie on the 8% rule. I think FOTB's suggestion that there will be more DNF's will happen too. How stupid a rule is this. why not reward someone who comes back from a bad spot in the race to finish strongly but outside the time required...just plain dumb and doesn't encourage the professional aspect of the sport.