What Went Wrong For USA Triathlon in Paris?

It was supposed to be different for Team USA this year.

The women’s team of Taylor Spivey, Taylor Knibb, and Kirsten Kasper is, on paper, as strong as any women’s team that has ever been selected. On the men’s side, Morgan Pearson had won a World Cup and WTCS event in the past twelve months. And with Seth Rider there to ensure Pearson would be in contention come the run, we’d see the chances to at least match the best-ever men’s finish of sixth place, taken by Kevin McDowell in Tokyo. Surely there would be at least a medal.

Instead, the individual races proved to be disastrous. In the women’s race, Spivey was the sole highlight, taking a well-earned 10th place. Knibb, after falling multiple times in the rain during her individual time trial race, failed to overcome a nearly two minute swim deficit and finished 19th. Kasper, meanwhile, hit the deck out of the leading group, then had another issue on the bike, on her way to 49th place — the third to last classified finisher.

On the men’s side, the swim proved to be a wrench in the best laid plans. Rider made the very front pack of the swim and stayed with that group on the bike. Pearson was a different story; despite making it to T1 within seconds of eventual silver medalist Hayden Wilde, Pearson missed the chase pack. That pack would eventually bridge to the leaders, turning the race into a run shootout. Rider would turn in a 44th best run to finish 29th. Pearson, losing time to the front throughout the bike leg in an unorganized group, would wind up 31st, and post-race would blast fellow competitors as “losers” and that “We lose (expletive) 15 seconds and we lose the (expletive) race!”

It is the worst collective Team USA performance at the Olympics since triathlon was added to the schedule in 2000. And with USA Triathlon’s ongoing financial difficulties, it begs the question: what the hell is USA Triathlon spending $3.4 million on for “high performance?”

This is an organization that, earlier this year, attempted to fleece age-group athletes into a mandatory $400 per year membership for the privilege of having qualified for Team USA. (Note that you will have to pay the $400 platinum membership beyond 2024 if you wish to race as an age-grouper on Team USA.) It is an organization that has reduced benefits for its rank-and-file age group members while increasing prices or hidden benefits behind additional fees. It has done the same for coaches and race directors, all without any enhancements to the overall experience or benefits. It’s merely a necessary evil in order to have the supplemental insurance policy that is needed to race or produce a sanctioned event.

Meanwhile, USA Triathlon has continuously invested in services to benefit the Elite athlete. Arguably the most high profile of these is Project Podium, the high performance development camp based out of Arizona State University and Park City, Utah. Their own financial statements list support or spend for over 400 athletes, in addition to the coaches, athletes, and “support staff.” All of this ongoing spend, combined with USAT’s other operations, led to a $1.7 million dollar loss according to their 2022 financials.

And yet, Team USA’s performance in Paris has not paid dividends against that $3.4 million spend. The current crop of Elite athletes is approaching the “graduation” to long course — with Knibb, of course, the most successful of that bunch, with her 70.3 World Championships crowns. The next youngest athlete — Erika Ackerlund — will be 32 for the LA Games. There are no heirs apparent for the spaces on the Elite team currently occupied by Kasper, Spivey, Katie Zaferes, or Summer Rappaport, if any of them decide to move on. And the situation is more dire on the men’s side, despite the six years of Project Podium — All of the currently supported men — Rider, Pearson, McDowell, and Matt McElroy — on the Elite side pre-date Project Podium. And although there appears to be promise in Reese Vannerson, other athletes like John Reed, Chase McQueen, and Darr Smith (all ranked in front of him) are non-Podium athletes, too.

Questions also arise out of the preparation of these athletes for the challenges in Paris, specifically. There was always the potential for wet roads in Paris, given the propensity for pop-up showers and thunderstorms during the evening and nighttime hours. Bike handling was a critical skill for this course (and, in Knibb’s case, the wet individual time trial). But we saw multiple crashes from Knibb and Kasper across those two days, in conditions that are not seen often in the location of USAT’s primary training hubs. Gold medalist Cassandre Beaugrand cited training in the United Kingdom, with the wet weather, as part of the critical reason she was successful on race day in challenging conditions on the road.

It was also a known quantity that there would be decent current in the Seine, even on the calmest of days. Of course, the Seine was anything but calm on race day, with current approaching the maximum meter per second that World Triathlon permits. Yet Knibb and Pearson, arguably the cornerstones of USAT’s medal plans, were non-factors due to either lacking swim fitness, or lacking tactical awareness to make the necessary moves on race day in the water. To be clear, this is not a failure of the athletes themselves, who have shown the potential at the global level. Rather, it was the system they operate in that has failed.

It all appears to be a system that does not seem to align with one another. USAT’s own website lists a mishmash of various programs and teams that all are charged with developing Elite athletes. For example, the Mallow Junior/U23 team supports athletes bridging from Junior to Elite racing. Athletes are “supported with travel funding to race at Continental Cups and international World Triathlon events, state of the art racing and training equipment, stipends for personal coaching and access to training, tactical and technique camps.” But this also overlaps with the stated mission and team that USAT has for men with Project Podium. There does not appear to be a cohesive plan to bring athletes along the journey from identifying talent, nurturing it, and having it succeed at the top level of the sport. Instead, the choices appear far too individual.

It requires a re-think and a re-focus. USA Triathlon CEO Victoria Brumfield, according to their last available financial statements, has an employment agreement through 2028 and the LA Olympics. For her sake, major changes to the Elite system are in order, regardless of the results of the Mixed Team Relay race next week. The annual spend of membership money on unsuccessful programming needs to stop. The mission statement of USA Triathlon is “to grow, inspire, and support the triathlon community.”

It is failing to do so.

Photos: World Triathlon