AEW President, Tony Khan recently spoke with ITV regarding the new partnership and Double or Nothing where he discussed possibly having a U.K. based PPV in the future.
On possibly having an AEW show in the UK:
“I think something we can offer, I hope we do offer, and I plan to offer is shows here because there is a great fan base here, definitely a proven live audience that will attend the shows, there are great television and PPV audience as well,” Khan added. “Plus, there is a great chance to market that content back home to the American fans. If there was a show (in the UK) that had an 8 p.m. start time on pay-per-view at one of the great arenas that we’d like to work with, that’s still a very reasonable start time on the weekend (in the US). You could see a 3 p.m. start time on the East Coast, a noon start time (on the West Coast), these are great start times to watch wrestling on a Saturday or a Sunday. In terms of our television, there is a lot of potentials to expand the partnership in a lot of ways.”
On AEW offering an alternative product:
“I think there has never been a better time to get people into wrestling,” Khan said. “Because the product is so good. I think what we are going to offer for free is going to get people enticed to buy the Pay-Per-View. I think what we have going in the Casino Battle Royale is going to show people an exciting, different take on the traditional battle royal format, different than what anybody has done. It’s not going to be two hours of battle royals. It’s going to be really, really action-packed.”
“There are a lot of ways we can take this partnership as we expand our programming slate,” said Khan. “I think we are going to be offering a lot more shows after Double or Nothing. I think the big push is towards Double or Nothing, it is coming up very soon. For the fans in America it’s on May 25th, But here (in the UK) it’s May 26th with a midnight start of the Buy-In show which is going to be the most widely available, live wrestling special probably ever in the UK given the wide reach ITV and ITV4 have.”
It appears that a top WWE Superstar, who is currently scheduled to compete at Extreme Rules could be out of action with an injury.
The WWE Champion, Kofi Kingston announced at last nights Glen Falls live event he is suffering from an injury, explaining why he didn’t wrestle at the show.
Kingston instead stood ringside whilst the rest of New Day defeated The B Team and did get in the ring to dance around with his teammates.
It is currently unknown what the full extent of the injury is, but WWE was still promoting his upcoming title match against Samoa Joe last night on WWE Raw, so hopefully, it isn’t too serious.
More than 350 triathletes headed to the Hawley Hard army training ground in Hampshire last Sunday for the first edition of the Huntsman Triathlon.
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The races started with an open-water swim in Hawley Lake, followed by a road cycle around the local countryside, finishing with a trail run through Hawley wood and around the lake.
In the men’s Olympic race (1500m/47km/10km), Colin Dixon beat nearest rival Robert Fryer by more than 2mins to cross the line in 2:20:38, while 2013 Gauntlet winner Karl Alexander came third. In the women’s race, Rebecca Slack comfortably won with a time of 2:49:40, with Ruth Thom and Marie Coburn taking second and third place.
In the sprint distance races (750m/20km/5km), there were some good battles throughout: Tim Wallis won the men’s event in a time of 1:13:33 and Katrina Yerbury triumphed in the women’s race with a remarkable time of 1:23:37, which placed her in the overall top ten.
Full results can be found at: www.tdl.ltd.uk.
(Images: Charles Whitton Photography)
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Did you race the Huntsman? How did you get on? Let us know in the comments below!
The tough conditions at this year’s Ironman Hawaii were plain to see, with strong sea currents for the swim, gusty crosswinds blowing across the Queen K highway and daytime temperatures peaking above 30°C.
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We asked renowned tri statistician Raymond Britt (founder of RunTri.com) to crunch the numbers for us, and his findings reveal that average finish times hit 11:35hrs this year, up from 11:06hrs in 2013 and 11:32hrs in 2012:
The picture was broadly the same across all categories, with only the pro men managing to equal their 2013 average time of 8:50hrs:
Of the 21 categories racing last Saturday, ten of them came in below the average time of 11:35hrs:
Looking at the average splits across the three disciplines (plus transitions), the biggest increases were on the bike leg:
Average bike splits varied this year from 4:42hrs for the pro men to 7:35hrs for W60-64:
(Main image: Paul Phillips)
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Did you race in Hawaii last weekend? How did you get on? Let us know in the comments!
The 220 Triathlon Show returns to Sandown Park in Surrey next March, featuring lots of new features including a full fitness testing area, cycle and run test tracks, and an indoor TT so visitors can enter daily challenges.
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The event’s 14th edition will take place on 27 February to 1 March 2015 and feature a packed schedule of seminars from expert coaches and leading athletes, alongside an exhibition full of all the latest tri kit. Long-standing show favourites like the 10km run, training sessions and cycle sportives will also make an appearance.
Andy Healy, Show Director, said: “We’re taking full advantage of 220 Triathlon magazine’s 25 years of experience in triathlon and investing that into the 220 Triathlon Show. With brand new features to add to the already full line-up of exhibitors and events over the three days, the show will cover every aspect of triathlon and prove itself number one for gear, training, advice and performance.”
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Tickets will be on sale from November and visitors are encouraged to sign up to the newsletters on the website 220triathlonshow.co.uk in order to be the first to know when tickets are releases and to benefit from special ticket offers.
With this year’s London Triathlon still fresh in the memory, the organisers have confirmed that tickets for next year’s event will go on sale tomorrow (Friday 17 October), with four different race types available.
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Commonly known as the world’s largest triathlon, more than 13,000 athletes of all abilities took part this year, including Olympic swimmer Mark Foster, road cyclist Rob Hayles and TV presenter Jennie Falconer.
Next year’s event will take place on 8/9 August 2015 and offer four race types: Super Sprint, Sprint, Olympic and Olympic Plus, as well as the option to compete as part of a team relay. It will again form part of the British Triathlon Super Series, along with Blenheim Triathlon, Tri Liverpool and Windsor Triathlon (coming into its 25th anniversary).
This year’s elite races were won by Emma Pallant and Mark Buckingham (report here), and you can check out our photo galleries here and here.
Recently I was lying on a table while a physio friend of mine inflicted the kind of pain on my buttocks you’d normally have to pay serious cash for in Soho. As I lay there squawking like a castrated parrot every time he elbowed me in the hamstrings, he engaged me in small talk about how my season was going, presumably because he was tired of looking at someone who had the same startled expression as a pensioner who’s just heard a noise downstairs.
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I was happy about this conversational diversion because the previous evening, despite having a torn glute, I’d managed to dredge a new PB for my local 10-mile time-trial up from somewhere (22:35mins, in case you’re wondering). The presence of my tormentor meant I had a new audience for the story, having already carped on about it to everyone else I know.
Upon hearing of my achievement he replied: “It’s amazing you’re still setting PBs at your age.” As backhanded compliments go this was worse than being called a Nuneaton beauty queen. But before I had time to join in the witty banter by laughingly smacking him with a right uppercut, he delivered the killer blow: “It just goes to show that getting old need not be a barrier to performance.” That one really stung.
Age-related injuries are all the rage at the moment and my friend Neill Morgan has recently been under the surgeon’s knife to get two new Achilles tendons fitted, which is a bit like putting carbon wheels on a wheelie bin. Meanwhile, my injury has forced me to realise that, unless I can invent a flux capacitor, my best sporting days may soon be behind me.
This is a difficult notion to comprehend because there are still so many athletic goals I want to achieve, such as covering 100m in under 10secs, which I’ve only managed once before when I fell off the end of Brighton pier on a stag do.
Even before my injury I was feeling my age due to watching the para-swimming at the Commonwealth Games and realising I was slower over 400m than a man with no arms. But now that my ‘you’re getting on a bit’ injury is making my running so slow that I’m being outpaced by plate tectonics, I’ve started wondering whether I should scrap the Ironmans and start targeting races that reflect my decrepitude.
It was for this reason that I decided to enter the Brompton World Championships, a genteel race for owners of the famous folding bikes who are happy to ride around at the speed of coastal fog and where fashion is prized over form. The race takes place over four laps of Goodwood motor racing circuit (15km) with 600 riders observing a strict dress code of jacket, shirt, tie and the expression of an indignant gecko. I opted for a full tweed suit with waistcoat and a pipe clenched determinedly between my teeth, which may have been a mistake because it was a boiling hot day and even before the start my back was sweatier than Eric Pickles in a cake shop.
I’ve owned a Brompton for about five years after deciding to try and live petrol free. Initially this was a nightmare because it took me ages to push the car to work, so instead I opted for a small-wheeled folding bike guaranteed to make school kids wet themselves laughing at me. This was the first time I’d tried racing anyone on it (unless you count every time I commute through London) and I was surprised how seriously many people were taking the event – there were Lycra shorts, cleats and even the odd aero helmet on show.
The race began Le Mans style with a sprint to the bikes, which were then hurriedly unfolded before we surged on to the track. Despite my intention to simply pedal round like a gentleman my inner-triathlete took over about 0.5secs into the race and I instantly started stamping on the pedals as hard as anyone in brogues can. Despite being distinctly under-geared I finished the race in a creditable 27mins, bagging a top-10 finish in the senior citizens (over 40s) category with the added satisfaction of out-sprinting some French arseflute who’d been drafting me for three laps. Clearly continentals are no match for a man powered by fine British tailoring.
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I can honestly say that I haven’t enjoyed a race as much as this one for years, and even though I nearly died of tweed-induced heatstroke I will definitely be on the lookout for more gentlemanly races in the future. Until then, though, it’s back to the physio, who wants to use an ultrasound machine to zap my buttocks with electricity. Although after seeing how much this treatment costs I’ve decided to get the treatment free by mooning at a busload of pensioners and waiting for the police to come and taser me.
It looks like European nations delivered four of the five fastest average finish times at this year’s Ironman World Championship, with Spanish athletes delivering an impressive 10:19hrs average for the 140.6 miles.
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That’s according to the latest round of analysis from tri statistician Raymond Britt, who says that the next four fastest average finish times were taken up by athletes from France, Belgium, Brazil and Switzerland. The UK holds its own with an average of 11:23hrs, despite sending a large contingent:
The RunTri.com founder also looked at the correlation between fast bike and run splits – in other words, how many athletes rode the bike hard and left enough in the tank to have a great run.
He breaks the results down into four groups: 1. Fast and Balanced; 2. Energy to Spare for a fast run; 3. Left it on the Bike Course; 4. Smooth and Steady for a slow bike and slow run. You want to be #1 or #4, according to Britt:
“With the best-of-the-best triathletes racing Kona, a clear majority are in quadrant #1 and #4,” he says. “Outliers in #2 and #3 were either racing too cautiously or rode too hard and suffered on the run, respectively.”
(Main image: Paul Phillips)
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Did you race Kona this year? Where are you in the graph? Let us know in the comments!
Want to experience what it’s like to ride in the pro peloton? Hurt specialists The Sufferfest have teamed up with Team Giant-Shimano to create a new training video that casts you, the viewer, as a rookie plucked from obscurity to join your heroes.
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“When this amateur, this unknown Sufferlandrian came through, beating some of the best riders on the planet and won the Tour of Sufferlandria, the whole world took notice,” said Wade Wallace, editor of CyclingTips.com.au. “So it was no surprise when big teams started calling the Sufferlandrian team director Gunther Von Agony.”
The teaser video sees Team Giant-Shimano’s John Degenkolb shouting at the Sufferlandrian recruit as he fights to merit his inclusion in the team during stages of this year’s Tour of California and Tour de Suisse:
The Sufferfest & Team Giant-Shimano: The Rookie: Trailer from The Sufferfest on Vimeo.
The 55min downloadable video features a workout created by elite coach Neal Henderson of Apex Coaching, and is based around three 10min high-intensity race simulation intervals:
With this year’s Challenge Vichy done and dusted, the organisers have released the 2014 highlights, with a particular focus on the age-group races this year….
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Around 2,000 athletes took part in central France last August, with defending champion Andrej Vistica (CRO) winning the men’s race and Hungary’s Gabriella Zelinka overtaking 2012 winner Martina Dogana on the run to clinch the women’s race (race report here).