North American IRONMAN Pro Series Racing Kicks Off With a Bang in Oceanside

WPro:
On the theme of T100 Singapore versus Oceanside (latter has to be a course to love v . . . )
We see Kivioja there (deduce refusal of a T100 wild card). Conversely Perterer is listed but for sure she’ll be in Singapore that day.
Hering looks to me to be the only ‘top 10’ WPro IM Pro Series challenger. I guess Lewis and Alberts have a shout.
Lopes (F29) will surely lead out the swim (#3 in Paris and a minute clear in 70.3 Cozumel.) Clutterbuck and Kingma are maybe the next into T1.

MPro:
Note Harper (for his Blue70 swim bonus and SC refugee (and Olympic medallist) Rider.
The majority of the athletes who will fill the top 10 in the IM Pro Series come 10th November are racing. Several are double tapping with IM Texas three weeks later.

Overall great men’s field (somewhat on par with T100 Singapore in excitement for it).

Women’s field not great, saved a bit by the middle distance start of Maya Kingma.

If you wanna come top 10 in the men’s race it’s a tough race for it! You’ve got:

Kristian, ⁠Casper, Lionel, ⁠Gustav, Max Sperl, Birtwhistle, RVB, Kanute, Lange, Appo, Currie, Rider, Salvisberg, McDowell.

Foley not racing I understand.

Dubrik 50/50 and has been injured so even though usually I’d say he’s a top 6-7 lock in this field he might battle on the run.

Justin Riele will be there on the swim & bike but again has been injured so might struggle to run sub 1:20.

Harper will be driving the swim pace early I’d guess so will be interesting to see if things split up in the swim instead of it just being a front group of 5-10 guys it could be like groups of 1-4 people coming in together.

Biggest question is how far back will Lionel be to Kristian/Casper in the swim and how long will it take him to catch up. Then when/if he catches up, how cooked are his legs and will Kristian & Casper just be too strong over the half mara or can Lionel go with them.

In the women’s race Paula should win however she wants to win. I do feel like her best chance though is to ride quite hard so that Tamara Jewett can’t get herself into the race. Obviously on a course like Oceanside Tamara is a threat if she’s within 3-4 minutes off the bike to someone like Paula. Overall it’s quite a lot weaker than the men’s field. Some good IM women like Alice, Jackie & Danielle. Obviously seeing how far Kingma can push Paula is the one thing that could make the women’s race really exciting to watch. She’s definitely a name to watch in LC over the next few years.

Dragging this chat across from the IM Pro Series 2025 thread

Looking with more care at just how good Kingma’s swim is, I agree: Lopes and Kingma alone as a twosome heading out on the bike. Clutterbuck noted as ‘next best’ - she showed how strong she was in IM Vittoria, gapping Matthews by ?4 minutes.

The challenge for Kingma is that Lopes will be zero help and Clutterbuck just company when/if catches. I expect Findlay to ride up before entering the Camp. Her challenge will be to drop Kingma (the ease of which will depend on her willingness to take risk on the climb and the extent to which Kingma has developed her TT ability (any evidence out there in the SM wild?).

"After competing in two Olympic Games, . . . Long-distance triathlon is calling, and excelling there requires more than just power, technique, and tactics; aerodynamics on the TT bike are crucial.
". . . aero testing . . .
“Some WTCS remains on my program, perhaps road cycling too… but a longer triathlon race is definitely on the horizon. ”

Edit: Side issue: I would be surprised if Kingma had NOT been offered a T100 contract (which clearly she declined). Besides GTB she was a prime SC athlete for promotion.

Of course Jewett could surprise and pull out a ride like her best bike ‘ever’: at Oceanside 2023. But no evidence of that in 2024 iirc (eg 9 minutes slower than Findlay at 70.3MT). Could she catch Kingma with a good ride, or get close? It would be excellent to see those two battle it out on the run (Kingma has run 32:39 for 10km). I’ll back Jewett in that contest by a margin, on her consistent running ‘palmares’ and that 13 miles racing will be unknown territory for Kingma. Both will inexorably gain time on Findlay but imho not catch her.

I was going to come on here and point this obvious scenario out, not sure why everyone here is sleeping on Kingma’s swim, she could lead it if motivated. Any lady that swims in the front 5 of big ITU races can sit on anyones feet, even LCB.

And I do understand why some would sleep on her bike, it will be her transition from draft legal to a TT bike. But she has shown she has tremendous bike power in ITU, so I expect she will be quite competitive, and we just have to wait to see if it is from day 1, or it will take a few races…

As for Lionel, he will be in a great spot with so many men pros, certainly will not be swimming alone like Long does in the T100 series. This alone may be why he chose this series over the other, he should be able to get max draft in a decent pack. The rest is up to him on how to proceed, looking at his vids he should at least be very fresh on the start line. Blu of course should be the favorite, but that is the fun part about Oceanside, we get to see everyone for the first time after a long break…

Geelong pro series was just raced, i think there are some athletes backing up to race Oceanside. The swim was in the 21 minutes for front pack, bike sub 2hr and podiums runs were high 107,108, 109. Just an fyi of the level the series is bringing out. Winner was 70.3 world champ Geens.

Was Blu’s last race Kona? If so I bet he is hungry for revenge.

As said upthread a few days ago. Foley (bib #8) not racing but still planning to toe the line at IM Texas.
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