The world’s best triathletes are ready to take on a challenging Lake Las Vegas T100 Triathlon 100km course this Saturday as the T100 Triathlon World Tour reaches its penultimate race in the 7-leg series.
American favorites Jackie Hering, Chelsea Sodaro and Jason West visited the Nellis Air Force Base earlier today and found some eve-of-race inspiration.
“It was so cool to visit the Nellis Air Force Base this morning and chat to some of the pilots and officers,” said Jason. “I’m incredibly proud of all they do to keep us all safe and it’s given me even more inspiration going into Saturday’s races.”
Meanwhile, American Haley Chura stopped off on the Strip to get a picture with the world famous Welcome To Fabulous Las Vegas sign.
Sam Long Is All In For Vegas
Top-ranked American male Sam Long, who currently sits 5th in the T100 standings, can’t wait to get going. After a near-perfect start to the year, when he finished 2nd in Miami and Singapore having been last out of the water on the swim, Long fell away in San Francisco (8th) and then London (11th). But he believes the Lake Las Vegas course will suit him perfectly.
“I actually have no idea what people think of me right now… if I’m going into Vegas dangerous or washed out and not a threat,” he told the Countdown To Lake Las Vegas T100 preview show. “I know I have a very, very clear goal of the performance I want to put down in Vegas, and I’m pretty confident in that level of performance. I think it’s the best course for me to win at. I’ve got anger within me right now. I’ve got frustration. I need a place to funnel that anger and frustration and that’s all going into Vegas.”
“I would say I am both an underdog and a favorite,” he continued. “From January until May I had the absolute best year you could imagine. I had, I think, what you would consider the best comebacks the sport’s ever seen [placing last in the swim in Miami and Singapore but finishing second overall]. But San Francisco was a pretty hard experience for me. I just had a lot of external things happen to me and I tried to be as strong as I could, but it took a big toll.”
The Big Unit has had lots to reflect on in 2024, which has seen him become a dad for the first time, buy a house and prepare to get married in December.
“This year for me has actually been much more about my personal life than the professional life. It’s just been one life step another life step – and at the same time having to compete at the highest level every day. So I think I’ve done an unbelievable job doing all of that. Normally you see a big falloff in results when people do all these things, and I’ve been able to be right up there. I would say that the life stuff has actually been pushing me harder in a developmental sense than the triathlon racing.”
Comparing how he races through the field – with arguably the strongest bike and run combination in the sport when on form – to the US’s biggest sport he said:
“If we were to compare how I race in a triathlon to, say, American Football, it’s like I’d go out in my first quarter and let the other teams score four touchdowns and I’d get zero points. I’m down by such an unbelievable margin and I’m up against the best in the world. There’s no possible way you can come back from that. But I’ve done it for years.”
How To Watch The Lake Las Vegas T100
The broadcast for the women’s T100 race begins at 0800 local time, with the race starting at 0815. Meanwhile, the T100 men’s broadcast is at 1400 with the field diving in at 1415. Fans in the US can watch the action live on Max and beIN Sports, with highlights on Bally TV. See here for where can watch around the world. For fans in Europe the action starts at 1600 on Eurosport – or you can tune into PTO+.
The T100 Triathlon Live Data Dashboard is available at t100triathlon.com/live/ and will be packed with extra information on the races. Following the addition of athletes’ gearing setups in Ibiza, a new feature for Lake Las Vegas will be the ‘Race Facts’ section. Here fans can view pivotal moments in the race so far, such as lead changes, fastest discipline times, penalty information and more. Fans can also stay abreast of how the action will affect the T100 Standings as the race unfolds via the ‘Virtual Standings’ tab. All this is on top of the live leaderboard, which shows key data such as splits to leader, groups, speeds, positions gained and Heart Rate effort.
The full start lists for both races can be found here.