New CAT 2 Racing

El Director

New category of racing announced by TI yesterday - CAT 2. I've been out of the game for a few years but I haven't heard a thing about the Super Series - has it been a success? I suspect the fields were small and spread out hence the new category. The CAT 2 athletes will bulk up the pack and perhaps make it more exciting. CAT 2 athletes will still be able to compete in the NS so best of both worlds.

http://www.triathlonireland.com/News/2017/Cat-2-Getting-More-from-Triathlon.html

cart man

I think it is a good thing, some of the ladies fields last year were so small there was rarely any drafting.
I don't think a Cat 2 should be allowed win Cat 1, Cat 2 and NS which could happen. IMO they should be awarded the higher award.
It is a pity that it was announced so late with people already having their season planned and entered into races, also races that Cat 1 people would not previously consider but now they are Cat 2 will are already sold out (e.g. Carlow) but better late than never.
I think the NS should be left as an AG competition, there should be no overall NS "champion".
Looking forward to watching the Super Series races now they should be more exciting.

Will they have to reissue the Cat 1 Gold Membership cards to those moved to Cat 2 😀?

zico10

I think the motives in setting up the Super Series were laudable, but in my opinion Ireland just doesn't have the numbers for it to be a success. Perhaps TI see it differently and do indeed think it helped athletes on their development squads, but how the races played out was probably no different to the training camps the junior athletes would regularly do.

The number of high calibre junior triathletes in Ireland are pretty small and the vast majority of top AGs in Ireland aren't fast enough to compete with them or push them in races. The odd age grouper could hang with them in the swim, but after that it was just the younger triathletes (and on a rare occasion Brian Keane or Aileen Reid), having their own race. I don't see how racing the super series would have brought them on in the same way racing against top juniors in continental races would have done.

It was TI's hope that triathletes from abroad would come to Ireland to compete in the series, but bar one or two from Britain, I don't recall anybody else making the trip. And quite frankly with all the hassle that comes with travelling to an island nation with crap weather, why the hell would they?

From what I can tell reading the link, most of the 2017 Category 2 athletes are merely going to be guys demoted from Category 1 in 2016. There won't be any real difference in the super series races as far as I can make out, just that there might be more 'slower' athletes starting. I'm not having a go at anybody and I'd group myself amongst those slow starters. The action at the front of these races will still play out the very same as it has done for the previous 2 years.

A lot of Category 1 athletes from 2015 copped onto those facts and I assume by their own volition chose to race the NS in 2016. Perhaps they did so to try win the NS, but I suspect the more likely reason is they were excluded from winning prize money by virtue of the fact that they were in the Super Series.

Back in the summer of 2015, I was 34 years old and had I been in the NS, I would have been competing in the 35-39 AG at HOTW. Based on my results in 2014 though, I had qualified for the Super Series and was precluded from winning that category. I finished 3 minutes ahead of the winner of 'my' age group that day. We'd both competed in the same race, under the same rules and yet he collected prize money for being the fastest 35-39 year old on the day.

Prize money is never a motivating factor for me when I enter a race and I'm not cribbing about it, but I'm sure I'm not the only one saw the unfairness of the system that day and the pointlessness of competing in races where you're only there to make up numbers.

Needless to say several guys who raced as Category 1 athletes in 2015 were back racing the NS in 2016. And they're fully entitled to do so. It would be a nonsense if Brian Keane or Gavin Noble were let compete in the NS, but like 95% of the Category 1 athletes, I have never received funding, coaching or any support whatsoever from TI and in an amateur sport we should be free to compete in whatever series we want.