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issue #166: Dec. 18, 2025
All-sporters, I'll admit it: This email is late because I am very much already in holiday mode. Triathlonish will be off for the next two weeks — no newsletters in your inboxes! go outside! — and we'll be back in January.
I will also, when you next hear from me, be on my way to Florida for USA Triathlon's Endurance Exchange conference where (among other things) Feisty will be hosting a workshop on the specific physiology and psychology of coaching female athletes. You can sign up directly for the workshop or add it to your Endurance Exchange registration.
Have a great last two weeks of the year, and see you on the other side!
- Kelly
P.S. You can find past Triathlonish issues and subscribe here now.
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Quality v. success: The triathlon numbers question
A couple of weeks ago I was talking to someone about why a project of theirs just wasn't hitting the numbers needed to be financially viable and it was time to cut the cord. 'But it's a good product,' they said.
And I was like: Look, there are lots of good things in the world that don't make it. Good and successful are not the same. (Or vice versa.)
I was thinking about this again. Because over the last week I had a bunch of conversations with a bunch of different triathlon industry people about different triathlon industry things: The PTO-World Triathlon "merger," whether a reading-between-the-lines suggests that Supertri is cutting back on pro racing, the participation numbers coming out of the UK's triathlon industry
conference, the endless Ironman press releases saying how great Ironman is doing, Feisty and the upcoming U.S. triathlon industry conference, 2026 budgets and plans. On the surface, these conversations were all about different things. But really they were about one thing: What the hell is going on with triathlon? Is it a good product? Whose product? Will it be successful?
It feels really hard to honestly answer that question right now. We're being given one set of participation numbers that seem accurate and not great, and then another set where all the race organizers (shockingly) swear their numbers really are great. We're told races are growing and there are more events than ever, but I look around and there are no events here anymore,
no clubs, no growth. We're fed press releases where we're meant to believe that abandoning previously stated goals is somehow not a failure but a success. But that doesn't feel true, does it?
It feels like how officials keep swearing the economy is doing great and they have charts to prove it. But you know how much money is your accounts, you know what your bills are — and no amount of charts is going to make you feel those facts are different than they are.
Here's what I think about all the end-of-year whirlwind of news trying to answer this question:
I think the World Triathlon-PTO merger solves specific immediate problems for each organization, but that doesn't change the math and that doesn't mean it'll succeed. I think it's really weird we're handing over our sport's governing body to a for-profit private company and that there haven't been more watchdog questions about the implications of what a "partnership" actually means.
I think the writing is on the wall that Supertri will be cutting/cutting back pro racing. I think that's a shame, because they actually have an interesting product that served a market hole — U.S. short-course is the only hole there is — but I think they're not quite as good at bullshitting (they're good, but not as good) and so they can't raise as much money.
I think everyone wants to believe mass participation races are going to bring in the big bucks, but if mass participation triathlon was a big business it'd be a big business. And it is not, not at the valuations and sums these guys are talking.
I think Ironman is benefitting right now from two trends: 20- & 30-somethings wanting to do bucket list events post-pandemic, and certain countries/regions using sports in the current political world to fund global rebrands. But I think Ironman's fundamental business model is still backwards-looking and growth-restricted with no intention of solving for the future.
Sure, it might be me, might be where I live and my friends, maybe. But I go to a lot of races and know a lot of athletes. And I don't feel like triathlon is offering a good product right now that's going to be successful. And no amount of charts swearing those facts are different will change those facts unless the facts actually change.
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Photo: Tommy Zaferes/World Triathlon
The bests of the year
Alright, since we shouldn't end the year on that downer (oops!), let's look back and recap some the best moments of 2025.
It's hard, though, to pick one super standout this year. There were lots of very very good athletes and performances (Kat, Taylor, Solveig, Kristian), but there wasn't someone who was as much head and shoulders above everybody else as there sometimes is. If we're going to go with one athlete then it's probably Matt Hauser or Hayden Wilde — simply in terms of the domination they displayed at the things they did.
Wild race of the year: Everyone's going to say Women's Kona (obviously), but I think we also have to appreciate the women's WTCS Championship Final in Wollongong. Basically the same thing happened — favorites collapsed, DNF'd — and arguably an even more mathematically unlikely winner (Lisa Tertsch) and outcome emerged.
Closest race of the year: Men's Nice or Men's Marbella. The shoulder-to-shoulder-ness of the pack exiting T2 in Nice always makes for drama. But I really appreciate the attitude (with so many little things that went wrong on the day) and thought Jelle Geens put into his sprint with Kristian Blummenfelt in Marbella.
Comeback of the year: Huge amount of kudos to Lucy Charles-Barclay and Taylor Knibb for their bouncebacks post-Kona to duel it out again at 70.3 Worlds. However, did you remember that Hayden Wilde had a terrible crash in Japan back in May? Easy to forget with all his this-or-that race-day drama that came later. And easy to forget with how dominant he then was in the T100s. Quite the comeback.
Result you're going to swear you saw coming but you definitely didn't: Casper Stornes' win. Sure, he's good, but you thought he'd podium not that he'd win. Admit it.
The world record you probably forgot: First, Kat Matthews set a new Ironman world record time (8:10) at IM Texas. Then both Laura Philipp (8:03) and Kat (8:05) went under that battling at IM Hamburg. Then we all, like, moved on with the second half of the season but that was still wild.
Weirdest season: Alex Yee's 2:06 marathon was certainly the craziest performance of the year, and epitomizes the post-Paris attitude of many of the Olympians: Try something else! I'm gonna give Georgia Taylor-Brown the crown for absolute weirdest season, though, which included the British gravel championships, six races in seven weeks between T100s and Supertri, and then throw in 4th at 70.3 worlds, the 70.3 world record, followed by second at the T100 final just seven days later. That's a wild and weird year.
And all of the retirements: Triathlete put together the nearly full list and highlights — Anne Haug, Braden Currie, Aaron Royle, Haley Chura, Jodie Stimpson, Meredith Kessler, Summer Rappaport, Matt McElroy, Josh Amberger, Rachel Klamer, Richard Murray, Els Visser, Chris Leiferman, Mel McQuaid, Simone Dailey, Dede Griesbauer, Richard Varga, Matt Sharpe, Yuko Takahashi, Sophie Linn, Kate Bevilaqua — but now you have to add Kevin McDowell sneaking into the 2025 class, too.
Honestly, though, the triathlon moment of the year that went mainstream, super viral, that people who don't care about triathlon bring up all the time: 80-year-old Natalie Grabow becoming the oldest woman to ever finish Kona.
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From the races
The -ish
Some of the things worth knowing about this week in our sports — or that I just think are interesting.
Ironman is currently doing aerodynamic testing of different draft zone distances, which is a perfectly reasonable thing to do to inform rule-making. But I'm not sure that a lack of data is the major issue in eliminating draft pack problems. And I am sure that while it's a reasonable thing to do, the only reason you'd
think it's a thing worth sending a press release about is if you listen to too much ProTriNews. (Ironman)
World Triathlon announced some new additions to the calendar, including a World Cup in Lanzarote, which is interesting. (World Triathlon)
Grand Slam Track officially declared bankruptcy and in the bankruptcy filings had to list their biggest creditors. And, in the running world, people are losing their minds that a well-known Grand Slam "partnership" with the online media outlet Citius meant that Citius was being paid. The Citius founder said, in his defense, he thought it was obvious to readers and I will say I also thought it was obvious. Sure, it's problematic, but it's also absolutely how these things work now and if you think it's not how they work in triathlon then what you did think "partnership" meant. (Front Office Sports/Letsrun)
More swimmers are joining the Enhanced Games. I dunno what it is about swimming, maybe they need to be paid better. (SwimSwam)
Did you know fencing is also starting a league? (Bloomberg)
I made a list of the best women's sports moments of 2025 for Feisty and I had thought it'd be hard to come up with enough in a non-Olympic year but there were a lot. (Feisty)
This guy just did the fastest Ironman ever in Antarctica in 28 hours, 51 minutes. Apparently. (Instagram)
The Honolulu Marathon looked, uh, rough. (Instagram)
World champs in different sports, Kate Courtney and Chelsea Sodaro made a Youtube short about working and training together. (Youtube)
Tara Dower also made a Youtube about her rough year. (Youtube)
I got obsessed with this big wave rescue last week in Nazare. (Instagram)
And the beer mile world championships: men & women. (Youtube)
One last thing
An excellent photo that really captures cross-county in its finest.
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Triathlonish is written by Kelly O'Mara. Ads by Ella Hnatyshyn
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