Joe Skipper on Retirement, Professional Triathlon’s Changing Landscape, and What Comes Next

is it tough to come race in the u.s um have you found a lot of success or has that just been something hard to nail down

no i found it quite good like and i really enjoyed it to be honest i prefer to race in the us than i did in in europe because i found it was a lot more fun there was a lot more like everyone's like english speaking like i mean you guys might find it when you go to europe sometimes it can be quite hard and just not being able to speak the language and and everything like that can can make things a lot more awkward it's all right if there's a few of you that go together like two or three of you and you're kind of doing your own thing in a group or the the europeans that you know speak english but They can make it a lot harder.

And also, I feel like the races in America are a lot more legit.

You know, you know, the marshalling is going to be held to a higher standard, whereas in Europe, I do feel like it can be a bit down to, you know, a bit like the Wild West.

You know, you can go to Spain.

And then what might never be a drafting call, you know, and everyone's riding six meters behind each other and they've got a load of motos.

Whereas I feel like America, you get wider roads, they hold themselves to quite high count in terms of like the penalty.

Sometimes I'd say they're a bit overzealous, but...

in i would rather than be a bit over strict and every once in a while you get the wrong side of a penalty than being not very strict at all really lenient and just letting cheating happen all the time in every race that's why i stopped racing in spain because i just got so fed up of the races just being like a complete farce that was one of the reasons why i kept going to america because you're just guaranteed much more legit fair races and the best athletes then come out on top

yeah we saw some of that stuff in mexico and south america too or we've we've all experienced a little bit and then the germans man they're just they're way strict man like you like just look at them weird and they're like ah you're drafting uh they just don't give a shit about you

yeah yeah it's complete lorry now especially i think with that race ranger because People will sometimes see the light and they won't take anything like any context.

You know, if you hit a bit of a hill, obviously you're going to bunch up a bit.

But sometimes there's no they don't take any context to it.

So it's like, oh, light went red.

Boom.

You know, penalty.

And it's like you've got to kind of understand the race and dynamics of it.

So you did the referees do need to be a bit more skilled.

You know, that is one of the bad things in triathlon where there's no they have no cameras.

There's no VAR, is there? It's just like if someone does a terrible decision, you have to live with it.

I think that's probably the hardest part for me with race Ranger now is that we've got this great technology and it's a really good tool, but nobody within the rulemaking industry has kind of adopt all the capacity to make some really good, judgment calls.

Cause every pro briefing that we have, it's just like this big question mark on like, well, what happens if you slot in when someone's blue? Or what if you happens, if you do hit a red light and you're all climbing, it's like, let's just be honest about it.

Like don't call penalties on long climbs where everyone's going to bunch up just cause like it just, are we, I find that the rules that they're putting in place and officiating now are They're not there to help the race become more of an actual race that's more fair.

They're just trying to be logistically pinning you on bullshit calls that don't really impact the race, which could be preventing you from racing, actually.

So I think that we need to have some more common sense approach with how we're integrating Race Ranger, Joe.