The fabled WhatsApp group which saw several of triathlon’s strongest long-course swimmers combine forces to try and distance some of their big rivals in the sport’s top races has been consigned to the archives.
Last year at the men’s IRONMAN World Championships in Nice much was made of the fact that the likes of South Africa’s Jamie Riddle, France’s Sam Laidlow, Germany’s Jonas Schomburg and Belgium’s Marten Van Riel were among those who tried to drive the pace and string things out over the 3.8km in the water.
If the aim was to distance the big Norwegian favourites then it didn’t work as it was actually Laidlow who struggled early on and then Casper Stornes, Gustav Iden and Kristian Blummenfelt completed a famous Norwegian clean sweep of the podium.
But at Challenge Roth this year it appeared much more effective as a front pack of five – Laidlow and Schomburg again plus Menno Koolhaas of the Netherlands and German pair Rico Bogen and Finn Große-Freese – put nearly three minutes into Blummenfelt in sixth. Laidlow would go on to claim a hard-fought win, holding off ‘Big Blu’ on the run.
Riddle explains reasoning
All of which sets up a fascinating dynamic at this year’s IRONMAN World Championship in Kona as Laidlow, Blummenfelt and Stornes look the three standout favourites.
The trio are super-strong at all three disciplines but Laidlow definitely has the edge in the swim. However in Riddle’s latest YouTube video, embedded below, he reveals that the tactic – for him at least – has run its course.
He explained: “The WhatsApp group is done.
“I set up the WhatsApp group leaning on the guys because I knew that if I wanted to have any chance of a podium in the race, I needed to go a certain way. And so I set up the WhatsApp group.
“But I think I’m at a point now where, like, realising that by setting up a WhatsApp group, I’m only just helping other guys.”
‘I think it served a purpose’
After a challenging start to the season, Riddle bounced back to book his spot at both the 70.3 Worlds and Kona but he admits: “I am not one of the favourites going into these two next World Championships, so I’m not going to be a player in someone else’s game.
“If they want to set up a WhatsApp group, they can. It’s just not what I’m going to do.
“I think it served a purpose, but at the end of the day, I can’t control how committed people are going to be to a certain plan. So the WhatsApp group is dead.”
After Challenge Roth Blummenfelt had no complaints about the tactics when chatting to TRI247, joking: “Sam Laidlow has my number so it’s odd that he didn’t add me into the group!
“But I think it’s more difficult to get away and get that gap in Hawaii than it was here.
“There’s more density to the field in Kona which means that normally there are more people between those top five swimmers and down to me and I think that would have made it a little bit easier to stay in that group.”
