So according to the head IM Official the Sam penalty was for slotting in. I don’t see where that happened during the Laundry pass in this clip–would have to be from an off-screen rider in front, but why would Sam stand and surge in behind that rider if there was a rider there? The official also said the penalty happened earlier before he got served the penalty, but I think that still lined up time wise around this situation. Really strange.
He did slot in before he passed all the riders in that line….BUT, it appeared there was room to do so AND there was another rider passing him on the left at the same time. He literally had nowhere to go……couldn’t move forward because of the overtaking rider and couldn’t go backwards because he would have then gotten a penalty for not completing the pass.
Even without Lionel and Jan, I am pretty excited to see where the field is at.
Sam Long trying to bridge to front group of Ben, Leo, West, and Quenet. Yo yo yo is towing Laundry, Lagerstrom, Goodwin, and Riele.
Holly out front with Paula pulling a chase group with Sodaro.
@Jonathan out of water in 41:22. Let’s go JL!
Who had @Jonathan down as a better runner than biker? 
That’s hell of a run tbf.
Yeah, to run a 1:33 in 1st half Ironman is pretty awesome.
A bit surprised by Jonathan’s bike….thought he would have gone sub-2:30 for sure….will be interested to hear his report on the bike leg.
But DAYUM did he run his ass off……basically 7’ miles. Bike for show, run for dough!!!
Congrats on a great first 70.3, @Jonathan….won’t be long until you snag a slot in the the 70.3 WC.
Was it especially choppy? I was spitting feathers the other week when Jonathan said what he’d got his pool swim down to and I also disagreed with Nate this week when he said he expected Jonathan to be much slower in open water, I’m always faster although I do admit I’ve never done a full see swim.
While I haven’t talked to Jonathan about it, I have done that race before - and also generally the swim is the poorest of my three legs as well, as such, I end up passing a crapton of people on the bike.
My guess is that the toll of passing logistics probably slowed him a bit. It’s just kinda messy, especially with a bigger field and invariably, people being in weird spots on the roadway to get around. One also has to be sure that each time you execute the pass, you’re doing so promptly to not get a drafting penalty, while concurrently doing so in a way that doesn’t blow your race plan. So you sometimes end up holding back out of th e draft to find the right time/spot/moment to pass, which puts you below race plan power/speed. Now repeat all roughly a thousand times for all the people he passed. 
Either way, very solid run off the bike and overall very solid performance.
Yeah, that is why I want to hear how his bike leg went…and it may simply have been he was saving his matches for the run, too. That was always my approach to tri’s - since the bike was my strength (and I was pretty damn aero), the bike leg was used to save my strength for the run (which was decidedly NOT my strength…but better than the swim 
)
100%…like I said, it won’t be long before he snags a WC slot if he decides to stick with it.
I think he said this was pretty much his plan in the last podcast. He was going to go conservative on the bike for the run.
Some fun racing this weekend.
KB vs. Jan! Ali back. Magnus crushing the bike. Jason West running out of his mind. Some great story lines for both men and women.
[edited to add link I forgot]
Shaping up to be some fireworks across all 3 disciplines of both races. Haven’t seen much of of Ryf or LCB recently but women’s field is looking stacked for the run so should be a pretty epic chase if it all comes together (sad to see Laura Phillip out though.) I’m a bit biased but hard to overlook Ash Gentle or Tamara Jewett for this race.
Always fun to have Wurf in the mix, and I’m always holding out for the Ali Brownlee LC moment. Sorta hard to tell with Frodeno but I’ve got some positive juju. Can’t even comment on Blum because he’s always so damn good. Popcorn at the ready.
Great summary of an awesome race.
How They Train put out an interview with the winner, Max. He seems like a super humble guy. Apparently, Ditlev dropped back and then accelerated to try and snap the elastic for KB; it gapped KB. Without that move from Magnus, KB probably run away with it.
Man….the pace those guys were going across all 3 legs was impressive. Those boys were full-on racing the whole time.
Healthy Alistair needs to be at every race; he is such an animating force.
Brutal crash at IM Hamburg, Moto trying to pass other motos, drove into oncoming age groupers and took one out. Hope everyone isn’t hurt too bad. Here’s the crash…
Yikes - scary stuff.
Every time I hear Milwaukee this is the only thing I think about.
Men’s podium prediction:
KB
Magnus
Jason W