We Noticed: New IRONMAN Hall of Famers, RaceRanger Funding Push and Cycling’s Big Weekend in Philly and Italy

There was some exciting action on the IRONMAN Pro Series front this weekend – you can read our recap of IRONMAN 70.3 Zell Am See here, and we have some thoughts from the action at UTMB, too. With that in mind, we’ll focus on some other triathlon and cycling news that came up over the weekend:

Smyers and Alexander Inducted into IRONMAN Hall of Fame

A couple of legends will become part of the IRONMAN Hall of Fame in Kona this October – Karen Smyers and Craig (Crowie) Alexander. The two were surprised with the news last week – Smyers during an interview with Bob Babbitt, and Alexander during the coverage of IRONMAN Zell Am See yesterday.

Smyers won in Kona in 1995, and was also the winner of the ITU World Championship in 1990 and 1995 – in fact that second win and her win in Kona were only weeks apart. (She’s the only woman to win those two races in the same season.) She won the Triathlon Pro Tour in 1993 and 1994, the 1991 World Cup Series and the gold medal at the 1995 Pan American Games. She’ll forever be remembered, though, for her incredible resilience – in 1997 a freak accident with a storm window severed her hamstring and then, a year later, she was hit by an 18-wheel truck during a training ride. In 1999 she was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. She came back from all that, winning five races including a fifth national title in 2001, and that year finished fifth in Kona at the age of 40. In 2005 she managed another top-10 finish (ninth) in Kona at the age of 44.

Alexander took the inaugural IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship in 2006 and, a couple of years later, would take his first of three IRONMAN World Championship titles. He would defend his title in 2009 and win again in Kona in 2011, the year he also took his second 70.3 world title, too. The Kona win in 2011 was notable because, at 38, he became the oldest man to win the IRONMAN World Championship (Jan Frodeno was also 38, but two months younger when he won in 2019), and also broke the course record that had stood for 15 years.

RaceRanger Makes Funding Push

Continuing it’s push to scale the system for age-group racing, New Zealand start up RaceRanger has opened a US$1 million investment opportunity to “wholesale and accredited investors.”

The existing backers, which includes more than 50 investors including professional athletes, have taken up the majority of the fundraising round, committing $600,000. The funds will be used to build and deploy another 900 sets of third-generation RaceRanger units, along with additional engineering and operational capacity to be able to scale up for age-group athletes.

As we reported earlier this year, the company has been making some good headway on the age-group front. Last year RaceRanger did a trial run at Challenge Wānaka with just under 300 age-group competitors, setting the stage for its implementation a pair of races in New Zealand in 2027: the Tauranga Half and once again at Challenge Wānaka.

Looking ahead, the goal is for the RaceRanger devices to stream live data to the cloud, work with a connected officials’ app, provide real-time athlete safety tracking and GPS tracking for supporters, while also providing post-race performance reports for both pros and age-group athletes.

“We set out to solve the single biggest problem in our sport, and the professional field has voted with its calendar. We are continually being contacted and asked when the system will be made available to competitive age groupers, and this has been where we have focussed R&D for the last 18 months. We’ve worked on the operational scalability, while providing benefits outside the core drafting detection for the less competitive portion of the field. If rolled out in the right way, we see no reason why age-groupers shouldn’t be given the same race day experience improvements that pros around the world have become accustomed to.” said James Elvery, Co-Founder and CEO of RaceRanger. “This raise is about that next step: rolling out the scalability adjustments and additional features beyond the core drafting detection service, to take RaceRanger from the pros to the hundreds of thousands of amateurs who take on a long-distance tri every year. We believe they, their fans, supporters, and the race organisers all deserve an even better race day experience.”

Philadelphia Cycling Classic is Back

Big-time cycling events have become a thing of the past in the US – gone are the days when we get to see some of the sport’s biggest names compete at the Tour of California, the USA Pro Challenge, the Tour of Utah or … the Philadelphia Cycling Classic. That last race was back on Sunday, though, the first time the classic event with the famed Manayunk Wall climb has been staged in a decade.

The Philly Classic dates back to the mid-80s when it started up as the CoreStates USPRO Championship and was considered the top one-day professional cycling race in the United States. The demanding course included multiple climbs up the steep, cobblestone-flanked Levering Street up to Manayunk (hence the aforementioned name). Over the years some of cycling’s biggest North American stars took part – Eric Heiden won the inaugural event in 1985 riding for the 7-Eleven team, while fellow 7-Eleven team member, Andy Hampsten, took the title in 1988. Lance Armstrong won the race as part of the “Triple Crown” that also included the Thrift Drug Classic in Pittsburgh and the K-Mart West Virginia Classic in 1993 – by then Motorola had taken over the title sponsorship of the 7-Eleven squad. (Another fun fact from that year: Rather than take the original $1 million payout that was to be spread out as a $50,000 payment every year for 20 years, Armstrong took a reduced $600,000 payout for the triple crown.)

The women’s race was known as the Liberty Classic (from 1994 to 2012) and also featured some of the sport’s biggest names over the years. Ina-Yoko Teutenberg is renowned as the event’s most decorated champion, having won in 2007, 2009, 2010 and 2012), while two-time world champion Giorgia Bronzini won in 2011. Elizabeth Deignan (nee Armitstead), a world champ and Olympic silver medalist, won in 2015. Americans Megan Guarnier (2016) and Evelyn Stevens (2013 and 2014) finally broke through to provide home-country wins.

This year’s race featured live coverage and saw Italian sprinter Chiara Consonni (Canyon/ SRAM) take the women’s win, while Germany’s Tim Torn Teutenberg (Lidl-Trek) topped the men’s field. You can see the full results of the race here.

Pidcock Dominates XCO World Championship

The UCI Cross-Country Olympic (XCO) World Championship is considered mountain biking’s premier event and serves as a key Olympic qualifying race. This weekend Tom Pidcock had an incredible come-from-behind win, starting in the fifth-row and sitting in 30th place at the end of the starting lap before working his way through the field to dominate the day. By the start of the fifth of eight laps, Pidcock had worked his way to the lead group, and he would push the pace, gradually dropping the rest of the lead group until he had a 10-second lead going into the final lap. It was the Brit’s second XCO world title – he would be joined on the podium by countryman Charlie Aldridge and Canadian Cole Punchard.

1. Tom Pidcock (GBR) — 1:25:26
2. Charlie Aldridge (GBR) — +0:17
3. Cole Punchard (CAN) — +0:31
4. Martin Vidaurre (CHI) — +0:59
5. Adrien Boichis (FRA) — +1:06
6. Mathis Azzaro (FRA) — +1:47
7. Dario Lillo (SUI) — +1:54
8. Filippo Colombo (SUI) — +2:02
9. Fabio Püntener (SUI) — +2:04
10. David List (GER) — +2:08

Switzerland’s Sina Frei took the women’s XCO title in Val di Sole, Italy, taking off on the third lap for a decisive win over Italy’s Martina Berta and her countrywoman Nicole Koller. The race for the silver medal was incredibly close as the Italian finally came around in the final metre of the race. As with Pidcock’s effort, fourth-place Puck Pieterse (NED) had to work her way through the field from the fourth row.

1. Sina Frei (SUI) — 1:27:50
2. Martina Berta (ITA) — +1:07
3. Nicole Koller (SUI) — +1:07
4. Puck Pieterse (NED) — +1:25
5. Samara Maxwell (NZL) — +1:48
6. Evie Richards (GBR) — +1:58
7. Jenny Rissveds (SWE) — +2:29
8. Laura Stigger (AUT) — +2:41
9. Savilia Blunk (USA) — +2:48
10. Haley Batten (USA) — +3:13

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