Day in the Life
I recently wrote an article for Team Evotri about what a day in the life of an Olympic training center resident athlete is like. Check it out:
2010 World Champs Series
In case you haven’t already seen it, check out the 2010 World Championship Series schedule. With Sydney, Seoul and Budapest being added for 2010 it should be pretty awesome. Not awesome, though, is the complete lack of races in North America. Looks like I’ll be spending a lot of time in Europe next summer!
Triathlon and the Economy
Has anyone noticed that the world economy isn’t doing so well lately? I think I read something about that in the news somewhere. Being a young, developing professional triathlete, I don’t really have any money of my own, but I’ve heard from people who do have money that they lost a lot of it recently. Most of the world’s major economies are in recession, and we hear everyday of a new company cutting x thousand jobs, x% of staff, etc. Is there anything that isn’t being significantly affected by this economic downturn? Triathlon can make a pretty good argument to this end, at least in the United States. Check out this article from the San Diego Union-Tribune.
For those of you who don’t like to click links, I’ll summarize. Basically, while many other sports organizations are cutting back in expenditures, triathlon continues to grow. There are several reasons that could possibly explain this, the biggest of which is that triathlon in the United States often isn’t a hobby but rather a lifestyle. Most people can’t put a price on the fitness and happiness that participating in triathlon provides, and so they continue to race and train despite the sagging economy. To be honest, though, my summarizing skills are not very good, and you are better off just reading the article.
The Dow Jones…not doing so good.
I can personally attest to the resilience of triathlon in these bad economic times. The ITU just announced it’s new World Championship Series, complete with title sponsor Dextro Energy and a $2,000,000 total prize purse ($150,000 at each of the eight races and a $700,000 overall series purse). As I posted a few weeks ago, the Hy-Vee Triathlon raised it’s already ridiculously huge prize purse to $1,000,000 (it was $700,000 previously). Sponsorship for 2009 is also going well. So far I will be working with two new companies next year – Kiwami, a French company that makes race suits, and Rudy Project, maker of sweet helmets and sunglasses. That’s two more sponsors than I had at this time last year when the Dow Jones was 57% higher!
Whoa
Yes, that’s a $1,000,000 prize purse at next year’s Hy-Vee Elite Cup in Des Moines, Iowa.
Whoa!
Dopers Suck
Dmitriy Gaag of Kazakhstan – dopers suck!.
This was recently released by the ITU:
ITU has imposed a two-year ban on Dmitriy Gaag (KAZ) after committing an anti-doping rule violation in an out-of-competition doping control test in Des Moines, United States on June 20, 2008…Gaag’s anti-doping rule violation was a result of an adverse analytical finding of recombinant erythropoietin (EPO), a substance on the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) Prohibited List.
So, on the one hand it sucks to think that people I race against are doping (although Gaag is not a huge surprise). It’s hard to say how common or uncommon this is in triathlon and I think it is best to just not think about it.
However, since Gaag was suspended on June 20th, all of his results from June 20th on have been revoked. This means I stand to move up to 15th place at the Tiszaujvaros World Cup from July, which should make me a quick $250 as 15th is the last person to get a paycheck!
New USOC Website
The United States Olympic Committee just launched a new website in conjunction with all of the national governing bodies of Olympic sports here in the United States in the hopes of delivering up to date news and content on all things related to Team USA and the Olympics. The main USOC site is www.TeamUSA.org and the site specific to triathlon is triathlon.TeamUSA.org.
It looks like they have done a very good job with it. In fact I think I just saw more triathlon related content in one sitting than I ever thought possible. Here are a few things I found (including an article that mentions me!):
- Matt Reed secures Olympic spot with 5th place finish at World Champs
- An article on Sarah Haskins’ silver medal at World Champs
- Jasmine Oeinck – 2nd at U23 World Champs
- Pictures of Americans at Junior Worlds
- An article on next weekend’s World University Championship
