I am absolutely not interested in Tri Battle Royale (and by extension the Collins Cup).
First of all, Lionel still doesn’t own a Kona crown. He’s got ONE second place finish in 2017. Jan has THREE Kona titles. Lionel has NO wins against a healthy Jan. It’s a really lopsided match up that feels a lot similar to Peyton Manning & Tom Brady.
I do have an appreciation for what this has become. It was like watching a hurricane form in the Gulf, rapidly intensify, then make landfall in less than a week. A small beef that was just Instagram shit talking (the rated G type, not a Lance Armstrong/Greg Lemonf type beef) turned into a head-to-head match up. Zwift got in to sponsor it right from the jump.
That Canyon banked turn around looks awesome. I imagine it would save maybe 15 seconds per use, so one minute overall? The mobile feeding is pretty cool to help keep weight down. Both of these things while neat could never be done in an official race.
It’s still a hard pass from me dawg. Even if I wanted to watch it, it’s a 2:30 a.m. start on the east coast. Lionel is never going to get any closer than two minutes back and it’ll be a boring day when you can’t get in the same frame as Jan—that’s just shitty TV.
Speaking of broadcasting, I wonder how the revenue from all this is getting split? How is everyone making their money off of this exhibition? Is it structured like boxing prize fights?
If I want to watch the best of the best go at it then I’ll watch Kona. I’m pretty sure a healthy Jan hasn’t been beaten since Jesse Thomas did it in 2016 at IRONMAN Lanzarote. Lionel just lost to Sam Long and finished 11th at Coeur d’Alene—he should be focusing on acquiring a Kona slot. Wouldn’t that suck? You hype the shit out of this as a match up between heavyweights, you lose the fight and then you don’t secure your spot at the table? Ouch!
Also, Tri Battle Royale is a shitty name. Battle Royale means a bunch of people, you know…like KONA. What Lionel and Jan have is called a duel. It bugs the shit out of me every time I see it or hear it.
Inside the Mind of Eric Esposito 
so the tri battle did have great production value. the multiple camera coverage was spot on, the live metrics kept it interesting, but they were only able to achieve that high level of broadcast quality it had to be only two people.
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To me that says to get a better TV product the pro fields have to shrink. Kona is a 50 man/35 women field. That bottom 25/30 of the men’s field isn’t even going to come close to contending (like Lionel was never any closer than five minutes back in the tri battle—the dude couldn’t get close enough to Jan to be in the same frame as him unless they were passing going opposite ways.
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