With some long course races having already taken place across the globe, here are 5 thoughts on the 2023 long course triathlon season.

Return of the GOATs

In 2023 we should see the return of Jan Frodeno and Alistair Brownlee to championship racing. Both struggled with injuries in 2022 but look set to return in 2023.

Brownlee was able to race four times last year, winning at IM Sweden and IM 70.3 Swansea, but he was absent from both IM world championships and missed the SUB7SUB8 event that he had been crucial in initiating. We saw flashes of his brilliance at the Canadian Open when he rode off the front with Sam Laidlow, but stomach cramps hampered his run dragging him down to 24th. He has confirmed his first race of the season will be IM South Africa, where he will be chasing his world championship qualification slot. Assuming he secures a spot, he will be one of the favourites in Nice. He performed well at this location in 2019 when he came second to Gustav Iden at the IM 70.3 world championships. If he gets his slot in South Africa then expect him to focus on PTO races.

Frodeno, like Brownlee, didn’t feature at either of the IM world championships in 2022. He was only able to toe the line once in 2022 and that ended with a DNF. He looked in fine form at Challenge Roth, coming off the bike with Magnus Ditlev, but had to pull off the race course 10 minutes into the run due to his Achilles, the same issue that kept him out of the May world championships. Later in the year a bike crash in training led to a hip injury that kept him out of the Kona world championships. As he already has his Nice slot from winning in 2019 he doesn’t have to worry about qualifying, he just has to validate his slot by racing an IM before Nice. He has recently confirmed that he will do this at IM Hamburg at the start of June . The other races he is targeting are IM 70.3 Oceanside in April, the first two PTO races in Europe and the US, before heading to Nice for the IM world championships.

If they can both stay healthy then they will be two of the top contenders in Nice. The return of two athletes who lead from the gun will change the dynamics further back in the field. The weaker swimmers in the field must be worried about the prospect of Frodeno and Brownlee breaking away on the bike with the likes of Laidlow, Florian Angert and Max Neumann.

PTO vs the rest?

So far the PTO have announced two races for the 2023 season, the US Open and the Asian Open. They are expected to announce the dates and venues for the European Open and Collins Cup in the coming weeks. CEO Sam Renouf admitted they are well behind schedule in announcing these races and that after this year they should be confirmed well in advance. It’s worth noting that pros have a provisional schedule but the races have not been confirmed publicly.

The other setback they have had this year is the Canadian Open falling away. Issues with government funding left the race unable to take place, but organisers are hopeful it will return in 2024. That would make 5 races in 2024, if no further venues are added.

PTO races have started taking over the season schedule and the top athletes are targeting these races due to the prize money and PTO points on offer. From what athletes say they are generally treated better at this races, being put up in a hotels while at the venue. With the increased number of races this year, will there be an impact on the other race companies?

I can see local and regional races put on by other companies becoming tune up races for the top pros, as they prepare for a PTO race. On the championship side of racing, Challenge Roth looks unaffected as they announced one of their strongest fields ever. With the Asian Open taking place the week before the IM 70.3 world championships, I can see athletes choosing one or the other. You would imagine the draw of prize money and PTO points would lead to athletes racing in Singapore. Although it would not be impossible for athletes to race both events.

If the PTO continue to add events in the calendar and venture into the long distance world then the other brands will need to up their game.

New Ranking System

This week the PTO announced a new points system that will be used for ranking athletes. Under this new system the points are weighted across three different factors; position in the race, the strength of field and finishing time. Tiers of racing have also been introduced so that higher points are won at championship level races rather than local and regional races. If you want to read about the new system in more detail you can here.

This feels like a big improvement, primarily because the system is now transparent. Athletes and fans of the sport can see how the points are being calculated and understand the factors which determine the points. Another plus is that an athlete committee has led the change and been heavily involved in the implementation process. If you want to hear more about this process then go and listen to the latest episode of the Pro Tri News podcast where they interviewed Ruth Astle, one of the athletes on the committee.

At the moment the system favours middle distance athletes as there are more races where these athletes can earn the best points. However as the race tiers are generally based on prize money, there is nothing stopping long course race organisers increasing the prize money of their races to climb up the tiers.

Canyon sweeping up

Canyon made a splash this offseason signing Ironman world champion Chelsea Sodaro , 2022 runner up Sam Laidlow and “2021” runner up Kat Matthews. Florian Angert also made the switch from Cube, after a successful season where he finished #14 in the PTO rankings. This is a real statement of intent from Canyon and shows a focus on increasing the number of top level women on the roster. These athletes will join Daniel Baekkegard, Kyle Smith, Jan Frodeno, Lionel Sanders, Patrick Lange, Laura Philipp, Sarah Crowley and Daniela Bleymehl on the Canyon roster. This has to be the most stacked team of triathletes around.

With some bikes brands like Specialized moving away from triathlon, will we start to see brands like Canyon consolidating all of the top level talent?

On the men’s side they have two of the favourites for the Nice world championships in Frodeno and Laidlow, especially with the Norwegians not expected to feature. Then on the women’s side they have three of the top favourites with Sodaro, Matthews and Phillip. Could we see a clean sweep for Canyon in Nice?

RaceRanger

RaceRanger has been in the news recently as the first in-race trials took place at the Tauranga Half. RaceRanger is “an electronic solution to the problem of drafting”. Two devices are fitted to an athlete’s bike which sense the gap between athletes with a 10cm accuracy or better. If an athlete is behind another athlete they will see different colour lights depending on how close they are. Therefore athletes are getting accurate information on whether they are in the draft zone or riding fairly. The introduction of this to racing will provide real time information to athletes on how they are riding and end the reliance on traffic cones and road markings to judge the distance between athletes.

As with all electronic solutions to refereeing there is a risk that subjectivity is removed from penalties. RaceRanger gives referees visibility of drafting remotely. The data from the devices on athletes bikes will be visible on an app for the referees to review. Could referees become trigger happy and assess penalties through the data losing site of real world factors?

Hopefully this should not be an issue. Referees will receive training on how to use the app and interpret the data. Referees still make all the decisions and they can use the data and their eyes to make the correct call.

Overall I think the introduction is a big positive for the sport and l’m looking forward to seeing it being tested at other races this year. Head over to the RaceRanger website is you want to read more about it.