U.S. Men

Me, I was never a fan of draft-legal racing. Let me rephrase: I don't care one way or the other; I just don't like to be dictated to. This was what I never liked about that whole scene. It wasn't the issue... it was the presentation.

But all that's past. Our sport, at least as an Olympic sport, is what it is. The rules for how one comports oneself on the bike, and how one qualifies for Olympic slots, are set. We have eight more days to make the best of it. Many people have speculated on how the rules would impinge on tactical and strategic elements of triathlon. All that has been somewhat in the abstract.

Now it is in the concrete. Really. The U.S. men have, as of today, eight days to learn what it took eight decades for U.S. cyclists to learn. That's a tight learning-curve. Will they figure it out in time? Smart money says no, if you think in terms of your average historically narcissistic pro triathlete. But with this new crop, I have hope.

Whether or not you like triathlon as it is expressed through "The Olympic Movement," (which for me happens twenty-minutes on-the-dot after my morning cup of coffee) what we now have is a national federation poised to send one man to Sydney. That's what we've earned as a country: One slot.

How do you earn slots? Mostly, it is based on how your top two athletes perform. Imagine a cross-country team with seven members, but only your first two score (the rest of your team just keeps the other teams' guys from scoring higher). That's mostly what determines whether your country sends three, two, one, or no athletes to The Games. Your top two athletes are your top two by virtue of how many points they've accrued over months and years, and they get points by racing where ITU points are offered. The points stop accruing the end of this month. So, The Worlds in Perth, and St. Anthony's in Tampa, both ITU points races, are the last places Olympic hopefulls can earn points.

Both our top men, Nick Radkewich and Hunter Kemper, are just a few slots away from not only earning a second slot, but a third. Our best intelligence tells us that Hunter is racing this weekend in New Caledonia in an effort to get more points, and then he'll travel on to Worlds the following week.

Radkewich will race in St. Anthony's. Here is where the thot plickens.

St. Anthony's is stacked. Latin Americans, Europeans, Men from Mars, everyone East of the Sun and West of the Moon is coming to this race except, er, for a few pikers racing in Perth that weekend. Included in the St. Anthony's start list are Americans Tim DeBoom, Alec Rukosuev, Michael Smedley, Doug Friman, Victor Plata, Andy Kelsey, Abe Rogers, and several others.

Allow me a digression: In order to qualify for Olympic consideration, and in order to be able to race in the Olympic Trials in Dallas in a few weeks, you must be ranked in the top 125 in the World. There are a few athletes, namely Tim DeBoom and Doug Friman, who are right on the cusp. If either is ranked, say 126th, he would not be able to race in Dallas which -- forgetting that it is the Olympic Trials -- is a $100,000 prize-purse, race. So they've got to race all-out, if just to be able to start in Dallas.

But what do you do if you're a US pro racing in St. Anthony's and you're safely in the top 125? Answer: You hope like hell Nick races well, and you ABSOLUTELY do not beat him to the finish. You spend your morning doing whatever you can legally do in order to ensure Nick Radkewich does as well as he possibly can in that race, and that athletes from other countries perform poorly. Why? Because if you arrive at the finish ahead of Nick you may be racing for one Olympic slot in Dallas instead of three.

Have the U.S. men, their coaches, and their federation figured this out? Have they apprised the U.S. men which of them are "safely" in the top 125 and so can race for Nick without worry for their own personal ranking? Our federation tells us, with regard to the tactics they are intending to employ, "It's a secret." Fair enough. But when we talk to the U.S. men who are going to St. Anthony's -- at least those whom we've been able to track down -- they say they haven't been contacted by anyone at USAT regarding tactics for the upcoming race.

We'll be writing about this in the days ahead, and we'll all watch and see whether the U.S. men "get it." The athletes who've chosen the Olympic road, and their federation, and their coaches, have certainly known this day was coming. Everybody knows the plan. Now they have to execute.

We have confidence in our federation's ability to pull this off, but may we inject one final thought? It's okay to keep your team tactics a secret -- just don't forget to tell your team.