Narrator: 0:10

Welcome to the athletes in motion podcast from race to recovery. With your hosts, Tom regal and Kenny Bailey.

Tom Regal: 0:29

Hey, Kenny, how are you today?

Kenny Bailey<br>: 0:30

I'm doing fantastic, Tom, how are you?

Tom Regal: 0:32

I'm fantastic as well. Welcome to our world and welcome everyone to our new home for in person here in Franklin. We're at the Coffee House at Second and Bridge. It's my favorite coffee shop in town.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 0:46

Yeah, it's fantastic. Man.

Tom Regal: 0:47

I've been coming here for a couple of years since I've got here. So really happy to be hosting the show from here so and are in town guests. Anyone that's here will be here at the coffee house. And we're usually here anyway having coffee. Yeah, so it just worked out really well. Yep. Let's travel.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 1:01

Yeah, it was, too, by the way. Yeah, I just had a breakfast burrito. Are you happy about that good food? Yeah. So yeah, we're really excited to have just a location, which is kind of kind of fun to bring our guests and be able to kind of sit down share stories. So

Tom Regal: 1:13

and Happy New Year, we're kicking off the new year here, as we said, and we're also adding a little bit to it. We got lots of fun stuff for this year on the program. So for this podcast, we're aiming, we're doing aim sprints. So this is going to be a shorter version of just us. Probably giving us lots of giving you lots of opinions, and not really rants. But just discussion. Yeah, we want to keep it positive, we want to have it so that we can talk about some of the newer issues that are coming up. That'll give us a little chess shoes to put out a little bit more program.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 1:47

Yeah. And also just We want your opinions on these things. So we are going to offer our opinion, we're going to offer our kind of take on a few things. And we'd love to hear from you guys like what, what do you think about kind of certain topics. So we'll do these throughout the year and just kind of be able to give you a short bite sized sprinter, you know, the sprint distance version of our shows. Exactly.

Tom Regal: 2:06

So tying that all together. Yeah, so good. So

Kenny Bailey<br>: 2:10

our first topic for today, to kick up our first show is the Ironman. Folks have announced officially now that they have moved the Ironman World Championship into two locations. So they split the men's and the women's, the women will be competing this year in Kona in October, and then the men are going to be in nice France in September. And then the following year, they're going to switch that the men will be in Kona. And then the women will be in Nice. And we've got opinions and thoughts on this. And

Tom Regal: 2:44

so does everybody else. Yeah. Because this has been a pretty hot topic.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 2:47

Yeah. So let's let's talk a little bit about why Yeah. I think the first thing to note and the first thing to realize is World Triathlon corporation to BTC is a for profit, there to make money, it is not to make sure that they have you know, obviously they need a great race. But the intention of The Great Race is to make money. Yes. And to make margin. That's another one you have to understand. It's not just hey, I need to make money. We need to make a margin. We have shareholders that we need to atone to profit, profit makes profit. Yes. Profit. And there's expectations on profit. And there's nothing wrong with that. Exactly. But that's you have to understand that's the lens in which they're looking at this. Yeah. So I think what they what they wanted to do was split the men and women's division. I think the the intention was noble. Yes, I think they were trying to solve a couple of things. One was to give more focus on the women to have their own day to be able to not get the publicity split, if you will, between the men's race and the women's race, so it's focused on them. I think the other reason that we all know that is also to get more people because you can have age groupers now on two days, rather than just on a single day,

Tom Regal: 3:57

you're not, you're not limited to 2500 to 3000 people, you can double that

Kenny Bailey<br>: 4:01

right. Now, the bad part about that is they thought they can do that. And Hawaii is an island, it doesn't have that you get overrun. So for folks that may not know when when, you know when Iron Man, you know, 20 years ago was there. It was great. It was a neat community, they did the underwear run to make fun of themselves. Because, you know, it's like, you know, everyone walks around and in, you know, basically your clothes. Make a fun run. It's gotten to the point now where it's it's really taken over that city taken over that whole island. And so they when they do they wanted to extend it to two days, and that just absolutely imploded.

Tom Regal: 4:37

Yeah. And I was there in November for another event and there was still blowback from the locals on we're getting a lot of nasty comments and things just get a small group of people still racing around the island and it's still they're still angry.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 4:51

So they tried to do the right thing, you know, to try to be able to do a spotlight but unfortunately what it did is it sort of cratered the spot that they're at Yeah, so you can do you Okay, so What are your choices after that? Yeah, well, you can try to move back to a single day. And that felt like that genies out of the bottle. So I'm not going to do that. Yeah. You can try a whole different location. Or you can try to figure out how to do this kind of split thing. And I think they they went towards a split thing. I have to tell you, I'm not I'm not a huge fan of, of this. And I

Tom Regal: 5:19

think we need to look at what what is the issue? Is it the fact that Kona has to be the World Championship? Or is it the fact that Kona has to be Kona, and that World Championship can be something completely separate? And that's there's a lot of questions on that. Like, for me, personally, I don't care about the World Championship. I'm never going to qualify for the World Championship type of thing, but I love Kona. Yeah. And I would go to race at Kona. Yep. So how does that play into it? It's like,

Kenny Bailey<br>: 5:49

Yeah, I think whenever you do anything new or different, there's always going to be blowback on this. I think the the the issue is because it's so inextricably tied with Kona, the background, the lava fields, you know, going to the Queen, K Highway, all of that has this elevation this you don't you don't say hey, I'm gonna go the World Championship. The shorthand for most triathletes is I'm going to call it okay. I'm trying to get to Konya. Right. And that means I'm trying to get to the World Championship this age groupers. You know, you're just trying to get there to be a top age group, you're obviously not gonna be on the podium. So that's the challenge. The challenge is you've combined it with this location. And if you recall, I believe was it last year when they did it in St. George, nothing against St. George. But if you saw the shots from St. George, you know, having having the leader run behind like an apartment building underneath and seemed to do exactly, you know, imbue the spirit of Iron Man. I mean, it was a fantastic race. But, but location matters to the second problem they're having is if you just look at the you look at September's calendar, now they imploded a half a dozen Ironman race. Yeah. Yeah. So Ironman, Chattanooga, Ironman, Maryland, those two are,

Tom Regal: 7:02

it'll be interesting to see how it affects if it affects those numbers of people that are qualifying for the following year, are those people that are racing that are a one and done type of thing where they're never going to qualify? And they're not concerned about that, that would be interesting to play out.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 7:17

And I've already talked to a few of the coaches that are talking about people who like, wait a minute, so I'm going to try to defer because I want to go to Hawaii? Yeah. Like I don't want to go to Nice. Yeah, my dream wasn't good. It wasn't good to go to Nice. Again, this is nothing against nice. I mean, nice is a beautiful.

Tom Regal: 7:31

It's got a long history and triathlon tour. It's been through the 80s. It had its great, great stuff. 90s.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 7:37

Yeah, so I don't think it has it's not it's this isn't a knock on nice. What it is, is is the decision point where it's if you do it every other year, it's you know, you're going to have athletes, especially people like this is my only time I'm going to be able to do this. I want to do it with a background in Hawaii. I mean, I that's what I grew up with. That's what I've been dreaming about. Yeah. And now, you know, I'm just kind of differ. I mean, there's gonna be all sorts of funky monkey stuff that's going on.

Tom Regal: 7:59

Yeah. So and is it going to be better for the Europeans? It's certainly easier for them to get the knees. Right. So it's going to be that when it's held in nice that it'll be more of a European? Yeah, not that it's not European based and our you know, dominated at this point anyway. But is it going to be more that way? And then more us on the on the Hawaii side? I don't know, I don't think I know, I don't know if that'll plan?

Kenny Bailey<br>: 8:22

Well, and that's the other thing we got to realize is WCC is a global organization, and any real expansion for those guys is is in Asia, in Europe, not in the US.

Tom Regal: 8:31

Priority expanding in Asia, and it just really hasn't. I mean, it's it's, there's opportunity, I'm sure for them on that.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 8:37

Yeah, but the growth is not I mean, the US you can add one or two more races, but you know,

Tom Regal: 8:42

well, they're looking at, as you said, we talked about the business side of things, right, they're looking closely at the margin, look, Alaska, came on there seemed like it was going to be great. And they didn't get the people signing up this year. And they yanked it right away. And you see them doing that with a lot of different races, where all of a sudden it's there, and then it's gone. Because if it's not gonna make money, and it tapers off the second year, get her out.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 9:03

Right. Well, and that's speaking of the money part, right? We talked about this as well, which is now as a sponsor, are you sponsoring September's race and you're gonna go pack it all up a month later and go to Hawaii

Tom Regal: 9:14

and almost doubles your costs to send the same amount of people and product and everything shipping from one end to the other a month apart? How does that affect your sponsorship dollars? Yeah.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 9:25

So once again, we're looking at the unintended consequences of what these guys are doing, which is okay, we want to be able to have more women to participate more highlight on women, I think it's a noble and right thing to do. The unintended consequences. Now it's you're splitting in a month apart, you're sort of tromping on other races. So those races, how they affect so if you I guess, if you race, you know, those in August and September, I don't know what the cutoff is going to be for the September. Right? Yeah. You have people that may be qualified for that that may want to defer. I mean, there's going to be all sorts of sort of shirts, it'll be

Tom Regal: 9:57

interesting is like, well, I want to defer just like well, maybe you can only defer Two years out to nice again. Yes. I can't defer to Hawaii, you're going to have to force that location. Yeah. On that it'd be interesting to see where they're coming from.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 10:09

Yeah. And, you know, it's, it's, it's starting to get a little watered down to with the amount of ways you get into the championship. I mean, it's,

Tom Regal: 10:18

I mean, well, they have so many races now. Right? Yeah, there's so many races, there's so many slots that you can get. So I'm

Kenny Bailey<br>: 10:25

curious if there's a number of they're trying to get to your point, it doesn't have to be 5000. You know, we're a one day race wasn't gonna be able to stuff that many people. And so there, there has to be some sort of financial number that they're looking for, to say, Okay, this is the number we want. And I don't know if they're, if they're going to try to attract sponsorship differently. So if it's an all female race, so we're going to try to go for more women's centric, sort

Tom Regal: 10:50

of, yeah, you're gonna have you're gonna have location based sponsorship deal if it's more close, if you're closer to Europe, and you're gonna go to nice if you're closer to Asia, you're gonna go towards it.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 11:01

But if you're sponsoring a women's, you know, focused one, are they going to get more women owned women run focused companies to be able to go do that? Yeah, for example, is a, you know, there's going to be certain brands out there there that are catered more towards women, they're going to try to, or they're going to try to do I don't know. I mean, it's an interesting as a person, like I grew up, you know, waiting for NBC to come on and do the triathlon, you know, I mean, you'd watch it, and you'd see it and I'd be like, Oh my gosh, and just get pumped to be able to do it. And so that glamour of that is doing if they can keep that glamour, it just feels like you know, at the point you're is the glamour starting to fade on it because we're trying to make sure we keep everyone happy. Get enough people. And you know, it's changed hands about three times now the ownership has changed. At least so you know, what's, what's the ultimate goal anymore of this thing? So

Tom Regal: 11:55

and and I'm like, for me, I don't care that they have a world championship that's not on the island. To me, I don't think that's a big deal. Yep. You know, move the world the world championship around, but keep Kona as its race, right, even if it's a single day. Keep it as that race that you could go to that will be there so that the people who want to race in Kona, can race at Kona. Yeah, you know, and then if you want to raise a colon and you also want to be a world champion, then you can go race the World Championship at some some okay. So, no, I like the idea. That's my opinion of it, because I'm but once again, I'm not gonna qualify. I'm not gonna get down that road. At and there's a roll down. There you go. You know,

Kenny Bailey<br>: 12:41

you just get old enough.

Tom Regal: 12:42

I get slowly I'm hanging on.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 12:45

So my idea I think, is when you look at health, how football, you know, so you look at the NFL, right? There are cities that bid the Olympics or cities that bid for the Olympics. Yes. There are great venues in the US and outside the US that Iron Man could go to Utah. You name it, right Sacramento, I just got back from Sacramento, they got a great venue to be able to do that. Right. coralayne I mean, it'd be awesome, right? Name it right. You can come up with whatever. But yeah, the intention is instead of instead of treating it like a, it almost feels like they're they're asking like, gosh, can we please held it here because we don't know what we're, we don't know where to hold it right now nice is a like a to your point, it's going to probably be a beautiful location is going to be a great, it's going to be great, great, great course. But it'd be great to be able to have those cities bid for it and be able to come in just like they do in football and say, Hey, what we're going to do, Utah is we're gonna get the city behind us. We're gonna get our athletes behind us, and we're gonna bid for the 2026 World Championship to come here. There you go. Right. And so now it becomes an event where other folks want to do it and you can treat Kona, like an anniversary event. So hey, our 50th year of doing this, we're going to go back to our roots and we're going to we're going to do Kona, so you if the people still want that they can do that to your point, you still have a Kona Ironman. Yeah, which time but the World Championship, maybe you treat it like a decade, once a decade. And that way the city isn't getting burdened, you know, every year. Yeah. It's like, Look, guys, you know, we're gonna it's gonna be a special

Tom Regal: 14:24

years we rolled through with two days, like, I don't know. And I think part of the problem was they had a Thursday Saturday, right? So it was really a full week at that point for the locals. The locals just got beat up for forever. They'd have to do a Friday Saturday type of thing, but you're finishing the race. And then starting the next one a few hours later. Yeah. Which would be really hard.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 14:46

Yeah, exactly. really are. So I think, you know, also you have the volunteers coming but I think we can try to you try to make an event where it becomes an event for that city where the city rallies around it. They have three The years to prepare again, just like the Olympics bid for the Olympics. You get it, everyone cheers. It's like, oh, I can't believe we got this. Okay, now we got two or three years to really get our get our act together. Let's get infrastructure ready to go. Let's host a really good race. Let's let's really show what, you know, I'll use Utah's example. Let's just show what you talking. Yeah, can bring, and then everyone can go cool. And then it becomes a positive thing, because now you get to go visit different races. And also, I think for the athletes, you know, you now you have to train differently, because the bad part about being in Kona, every year is is kind of I mean, yeah, it's kind of changes when it comes to weather. I mean, every race is gonna do

Tom Regal: 15:36

you have like one or two things that you worry about. And then of course, is the same and of course, hasn't changed for quite a while. I mean, it changed quite a bit in the beginning. Yeah. And it's not been the same course. So for anyone who's like, historically, it was like what has to be known as to be Kona? Well, it started in a wahoo. And then it moved to Kona. And then it changed that course changed multiple times before they finally decided on what they have right now, which has only been I don't know how many years it's been that way. But

Kenny Bailey<br>: 16:02

so you'd like to to reference right where the Tour de France be like, Okay, this one is absolutely for the climbers, right? This one's absolutely for the sprinters, it can be okay, this course, for those people that were in the top 10, but maybe the bottom half of the top 10 on the pros. Yeah, this may be more they're gonna have a better shot and doing this. For the heavier writers that were weather and humidity in Hawaii was an issue and always an issue. Yeah, you know, now it's gonna be cooler climate, maybe they're gonna have a better chance. So it kind of mixes up. Also that finisher. So it's not no offense to yelling for Dino the man's absolute legend. But you know, yeah, he's got that thing on lock. Right. So yeah, but

Tom Regal: 16:37

I think he'll probably probably, I don't think that's gonna matter. It doesn't matter what is gonna kill it. He's just going to prepare.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 16:45

Yeah. So I think I think that then brings that level of excitement. So if you're able to switch cities, you have to start training for the altitude for the different, you're allowed to be able to do that. I mean, it's,

Tom Regal: 16:55

and I think when you want to grow an event, like they want to get, you have to get the city behind it, you have to get the community involved in it a because you need volunteers, a lot of volunteers. And then second of all, maybe you get competition between the cities, like with the Olympic trade, who put on a better show, but maybe not to the level of the of what they're spending to do the Olympic shows now. I mean, it's just crazy. But it's not it's, you know, it's not that big, but maybe they get a little bit of competition going is like, can you do better than these guys? Right? Again,

Kenny Bailey<br>: 17:24

let's show him what kind of track community that we've got. Yeah, you know, let's, let's show that off our

Tom Regal: 17:28

destination. Right. Yeah. One shot and what yet for whatever to really put on a show.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 17:33

Yeah. So So I think Iron Man, just, you know, I understand what they're trying to do. I just think Iron Man, it's starting to get a little diluted, and it's starting to, it's the purity of it for me is I you know, I'm trying to be really careful to think, okay, is this just change? And I don't like change, or is it? Yeah. And, you know, you know, is it bias because we're in the US, and we love it. And the fact is in the US, I don't know, but I think just a two day event in over two different months is going to be a challenge. Yeah, I don't know. How, how that's going to be perceived. Maybe we just look three years from now. And maybe I can be I'm probably gonna be completely wrong, and and everyone loves it. But how it's sort of imploding you. Now you've got, you know, again, when you're qualifying for an Ironman, you there's a cut off point, because for that year, if you qualify early in the year, you can race, you know, later in the year, how that's going to work on two different months now. Yeah. And what, what the attraction for those folks that are like, Hey, if you come here, you can qualify for this year's World Championship now won't be able to say that. So that's going to be a little bit different for those guys. So I think there's going to be some challenges,

Tom Regal: 18:45

it'd be interesting to see how, how well, they think it out, right? Because there'll be some mistakes, and there'll be some little trip ups and some things happening. Because anytime you move to a new venue to create a whole new thing, I'm sure they'll have some really great experienced people working on it. Yep. There'll be some little hiccups. And of course, the detractors will jump all over that and make it something else. But how does it play out over the next couple of years? I mean, I think the contracts only theory 25 That's currently said. Yeah, exactly. So they've got a couple of years to see if this model actually works. Well, you know, we'll see. We'll see how it plays out. I mean, it'd be interesting. Yeah, sure.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 19:24

So sure. Tell us what you think. Tell us what your opinion is on this. I think we're we're approaching it, or at least I'm trying to approach I want to speak for you. I'm trying to approach this as Yeah, I think there's some challenges, you know, I want to see it succeed. But you know, the choices over the last few years have been interesting to see what's been going on and we hope it leads to a better outcome right now. There's been, you know, a lot a bit of a kerfuffle. When you get to a couple,

Tom Regal: 19:52

there's definitely people that don't like change, and they don't like change on many levels. And this totally blows their head and they have Hey, I'm trying to be like more open minded on it because I understand where they're coming from. I still love Kona, right? I love the Big Island. I do love the people on the island, I got some friends out there. I tried to get out there whenever I can. Anytime to race, or train or just visit the island, I think that's fantastic. So that's always going to be in my heart and Kona will always be there. But I have other races that race OCONUS. I don't worry about, like only being there for Ironman events. So there are other events on the Big Island that you can race and do to get that vibe. Yeah. Without all the fanfare and the cost, essentially of doing an Ironman distance. But you know, it is it's, it'll be interesting to see how this all plays out.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 20:40

So for sure, so yeah, so give us your opinion on it. Yeah,

Tom Regal: 20:42

let us know what you think. Give us some thumbs up, give us on the format. Let us know what you think about the format too. As we're doing all of this, we're, we're gonna mess with the camera angles and lighting and a few other things. We've got some great other things that we're working on for the year. So let us know what you think. Sums up five stars. You know, keep the algorithms active and get this out to more and more people. And yeah, and we'll, we'll look forward to catching you on the next one.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 21:06

See on the next sprint. All righty.