👋 Welcome back
Happy February, endurance fam. The off-season drag is real—we’ve all rewatched Stornes in Nice and LCB in Marbella one too many times.
But spring racing is now just weeks away: IRONMAN, T100, WTCS, European marathons, and Tokyo are all on the horizon.
Until then, today’s edition has you covered:
The latest endurance headlines
The best (and weirdest) Winter Olympics moments
A deep dive into pro prize money—who’s winning big, who’s not
How to test your VO2 max at home (no lab required) + the numbers to aim for
You’re still grinding through winter training, so grab a coffee, take five, and let us fuel the fire.
Let’s go. 🚀
While we already knew that Kiwi superstar Hayden Wilde was something special, his performance this week in the New Zealand Elite Road National Championships almost made him superhuman. [PTO]
🏃🏼 Quick splits
🚴♂️ Hayden has a Wilde time: Kiwi superstar triathlete Hayden Wilde underlined his cycling prowess with an impressive showing at the New Zealand Elite Road National Championships this week. Find out how he got on by reading more HERE.
⏰ The time is NOW for Jelle: Belgian star Jelle Geens is ready to focus all of his attention on a bid for the IRONMAN World Championship in Kona this year, as the two-time 70.3 champion admitted: “I shouldn’t wait any longer.” Read more HERE.
💵 Big money in the pot for new season: A revamped Supertri competition has been revealed for the 2026 season, with the innovative triathlon brand announcing there will be a record $800,000 prize purse for the Supertri Pro Series Final. Read more HERE.
🎽 Record half-marathon time rejected: Jacob Kiplimo‘s incredible 56:42 time in the Barcelona Half Marathon last year has not been ratified as the world record time for the distance. Find out why World Athletics made the call by reading more HERE.
👀 The stunning stats of Andreas Almgren: The Swede may have just turned 30, but he is seemingly only getting quicker with age – with his incredible splits at the recent Valencia 10K certainly grabbing the attention. Check them out by clicking HERE.
Presented by: World of Triathlon Live
SWIM, BIKE, RUN FOR EVERYONE!
World of Triathlon LIVE is a new triathlon exhibition taking place at Excel London 28-29 March 2026. Whether you're a pro-competitor, an age-grouper, an avid racer, a novice, or just curious about all things swim, bike, run, World of Triathlon LIVE, powered by TriDot, has something for everyone. Early Bird Tickets still available!
🏁 Race news
❄️ Winter Olympics
While we wait for the 2026 endurance season to fully kick into gear, the Winter Olympics will serve as a more than able replacement, with a weekend of gut-busting, km-crunching action on the snow and ice of Milano-Cortina in Italy to look forward to.
Saturday morning will see the first of the 10km cross-country skiing skiathlons, while Sunday will also introduce the opening biathlon of the Games – the one where athletes have to shoot at targets as well as trek across the snow in what promises to be an energy-sapping battle of wills and fitness.
Peacock, NBC’s streaming platform, will stream every event live. International broadcasters include Nine (Australia), CBC (Canada), RAI (Italy), TelevisaUnivision (Mexico), NRK (Norway), and the BBC (UK).
For all your schedules, explainers and results, check out the official Winter Olympics website by clicking HERE.
A prize money purse of $800,000 will be up for grabs at this year’s Supertri Pro Series Final. [Supertri]
🔍 The BIG issue: Endurance prize money
If prize money were paid out purely on the level of effort put into a race, then the endurance events that we all know and love would surely be among the best rewarded in the world of sport. However, it is a sad fact of finance that the number of kms you swim, bike or run simply has no bearing on how much you win when it comes to standing on the podium and picking up that cheque.
Supertri announced this week that their revamped Pro Series Final will boast an impressive prize purse of $800,000 for 2026, making it the most lucrative single-day payday in triathlon – edging past the IRONMAN World Championships, which offers $750,000.
While it is certainly a step in the right direction and has the potential to one day drive prize funding into a new million-dollar-plus bracket, it is a cold, hard fact of life that endurance athletes are placed somewhere down in the lower-to-middle order when it comes to collecting their financial rewards.
As discussed on a recent edition of the excellent Uncomfortable Triathlon podcast with pro triathletes Harry Palmer and Andrew Horsfall-Turner, the prize money at events can often be so small that lower-tier athletes barely earn enough to cover their travel and hotel expenses. Indeed, there were only eight triathletes who earned over $300,000 in prize money last year, despite there being more money up for grabs than ever before.
Of those eight who breached the $300,000 mark, all of them were winners of major championship titles – IRONMAN world champions Solveig Løvseth and Casper Stornes, 70.3 world champions Lucy Charles-Barclay and Jelle Geens, Pro-Series winners Kristian Blummenfelt and Kat Matthews, and T100 champions Hayden Wilde and Kate Waugh – proving you have to be REALLY good to bring home the big bucks.
In comparison, tennis star Carlos Alcaraz netted $21.3m in prize money alone in 2025, while golfer Rory McIlroy chipped in with a mere $35.8m; levels which can only be dreamed of in triathlon until the sport – which is still regarded by many as a niche event – can grow its audience to such an extent that TV monies and advertising revenues can start to make a serious difference.
Events like Supertri, WTCS and T100 – designed for the shorter attention span of TV audiences – are making steady strides in boosting the sports’ popularity, while along with IRONMAN’s Pro Series, they are offering most welcome cash boosts in the form of end-of-season bonus wins… but there is still a long way to go before our athletes truly earn what their endurance deserves.
For more on the Supertri story, click HERE to read what our TRI247 News Director, Jonathan Turner, wrote when he covered the launch earlier this week.
Who gets paid the most in individual sports?
The highest earners in terms of prize money at a single sporting event are golfers, boxers and tennis players, with the US Open (Tennis) boasting a prize purse of $90m, Wimbledon $72m and golf’s Players’ Championship offering rewards totalling $25m. Boxers, however, can earn staggering amounts for just one fight, with pay-per-view TV deals hiking up their rewards.
The biggest rewards in terms of endurance prize money are offered in road cycling, with the Tour de France fund at $2.7m, the Giro d’Italia at $1.9m, and the Vuelta Espana paying out $1.3m.
However, the relatively new discipline of Gravel Cycling is not so well rewarded, with the Gravel Worlds and recent Nedbank Gravel Burn in South Africa offering prize pots of $150,000. The Life Time Grand Prix, which offers cyclists a six-race season of off-road racing, has recently announced a record $350,000 purse for its 2026 season, with equal pay for both male and female competitors.
Athletics has seen an increase in prize money, even though the athletes themselves generally make more out of their various marketing deals, with the Diamond League Final now offering a total purse of $2.2m, the Grand Slam Track offers $262,500, and the Athlos women’s only track event in New York sets its purse at $110,000.
The best-paid marathons tend to be those which form part of the World Marathon Majors, with the Boston Marathon offering the most in prize money at $1.1m. New York City Marathon ($700,000) and London Marathon ($616,000) also rank highly.
Supertri will pay ten deep on race days, with the winners of the new Pro Series Final taking home $100,000 each. The runners-up will earn $75,000, and third-placed athletes will pick up $60,000.
The IRONMAN World Championships offers a prize fund of $750,000, while the 70.3 World Championships is slightly less at $500,000. The IRONMAN Pro Series, held over a full season, has seen an additional $1.7m ploughed into the annual prize fund, with the top three athletes in full-distance and 70.3 combined, earning $200,000, $130,000, and $85,000.
Another season-long competition, the T100 will offer a prize purse of $275,000 per race in 2026, with $50,000 going to each winner and the 20th-placed athlete earning $3,500. An end-of-season bonus pool of $1.45m will also be split equally between the men’s and women’s fields.
The World Triathlon Championship Series offers an annual fund of $2.12m, with each race holding a purse of $200,000. The Championship Final offers a total prize value of approximately $330,000.
Challenge Family announced an increase in prize purses for the 2025 and 2026 seasons, with the most popular of its races, Challenge Roth, paying out a total of $160,000. The Championship pot still stands at $100,000.
If Big Blu can achieve a VO2 max score of 101.1, what should the average age-grouper be scoring? And how can they look to make improvements? [IRONMAN]
⏱️ Coaches corner: What VO2 max should I be aiming for?
Let’s face it, Kristian Blummenfelt has always had a level of ability that is enough to make us feel a little inadequate when it comes to fitness goals and training.
So when the news broke last week that he had seemingly smashed the world record VO2 max score, many simply accepted it was just Big Blu being the beast that he is.
But it set us thinking as to what VO2 really means for the average age-grouper, and if Blummenfelt can score a seemingly incredible 101.1, what should we be aiming for… and indeed how can that score be improved?
With expert insights from Lucija Petrovic – physiologist at the Loughborough University Performance Lab – we have broken down what VO2 max is, what it means for your running fitness and how to calculate your score. Plus, in Tuesday’s edition of the Daily Split, we will also share some of our favourite run workouts to help boost your VO2 max and improve your run speed.
What is VO2 max?
VO2 max refers to the maximum amount of oxygen that your body is able to take up, transport and utilise during exercise. We express VO2 max as a number: maximum millilitres of oxygen per kilogram of bodyweight per minute (ml/kg/min). We can use VO2 max as a metric to quantify aerobic fitness.
“VO2 max can be used as an indicator of endurance performance potential, although the lactate thresholds are more relevant predictors of your current performance capacity. VO2 max is largely determined by genetics, and in a highly-trained athlete is unlikely to improve much with further training.”
Lucija Petrovic, physiologist, Loughborough University Performance Lab
While there is a ceiling on your VO2 max, determined by your genetics, for most of us, we are a long way from hitting our potential. The higher your VO2 max, the better your aerobic fitness will be – and the more headroom you will have to increase your thresholds.
Improving your VO2 max conditions your body to get better at utilising oxygen as efficiently as possible. At low to medium intensities, our body uses oxygen as its primary method of breaking down glycogen and turning it into adenosine triphosphate (ATP). ATP is the body’s energy ‘currency’, which enables your muscles to contract.
When your body gets better at utilising oxygen, you’ll be able to run for longer periods at higher paces before your body switches from its aerobic energy system to its anaerobic energy system.
Lactate is produced at a higher rate once we start working at an intensity which exceeds the rate at which oxygen can be utilised – ie, once the body switches to the anaerobic energy system, and is forced to produce energy without using oxygen.
Having a high VO2 max, means your body is able to utilise oxygen at a higher intensity. Enabling you to run faster, before lactate starts to accumulate and you get that horrible burning legs feeling that forces you to ease up. Essentially, improving VO2 max means you can run faster, for longer.
Do I really need to get tested in a lab?
If you want the most accurate indication of your VO2 max, you’ll need to head into a lab setting to undergo testing. This involves running at progressively faster paces while wearing a mask which measures your oxygen uptake, and having blood lactate levels measured. However…
You can get an indication of your VO2 max outside of the lab. A simple method is to use the following calculation: 15 x [maximum heart rate divided by resting heart rate].
For example, if your max heart rate is 180bpm and your resting heart rate is 48bpm, the equation would be 15 x (180/48).
As your fitness increases, your resting heart rate will start to decrease because your cardiovascular system becomes more efficient. This, in turn, will give you a higher VO2 max score.
Smart watches and fitness wearables are often equipped with technology to calculate your VO2 max, typically using the Firstbeat method, which takes heart rate data and GPS/speed data to analyse how hard your body is having to work to achieve various paces, and uses this analysis to give you a VO2 max score.
VO2 max calculations outside of a lab setting are unlikely to ever be perfectly accurate. However, they do give you a benchmark to be able to track a trend in your running fitness.
So, what is a good, average, exceptional VO2 max score?
A ‘good’ VO2 max varies by a number of factors, including age – a little bit like a ‘good for age’ marathon time. Below you can find the average, good and exceptional VO2 max scores by age and gender. This can give you an indication of how your aerobic fitness compares to your peers. Just remember, it’s less about comparing yourself to others and more about tracking a trend in your own fitness.
🚨Look out for Tuesday’s edition of the Daily Split, where we will share with you some expert ways in which you can look to improve your VO2 max score.
💪 The outer edge of endurance
The word endurance includes ‘endure’ for a reason, and that is certainly what superstar skier Lindsey Vonn is prepared to do as she sets her sights on the Winter Olympics downhill on Sunday… despite tearing her ACL last week when she crashed out of a competition in Switzerland and needed to be airlifted to the hospital.
With bruising to the bone and various meniscal tears to match her now tattered Anterior Cruciate Ligament, it is a miracle that Vonn – gold medalist in Vancouver in 2010 – is even contemplating taking part in the 2,255-metre course at the Stelvio Alpine Skiing Centre, which is widely regarded as one of the most challenging on the world circuit, thanks to its steepness and technical demands…
Crotchgate: Olympic Ski Jumpers, Genital Injections, and the Internet’s Best Memes 😳🍆🏂
The Winter Olympics kicked off in controversial fashion this week, with news hitting the headlines that WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency) will investigate claims that ski jumpers have been injecting hyaluronic acid into their genitalia… 😣😳😬
It is apparently all down to the athletes wanting a bigger, looser suit to increase drag in the air and act like a sail in the wind to allow them to make longer jumps. The bigger the athlete's manhood, the greater the need for a bigger suit. It may sound like a cock and bull story, but we assure you, this is a real issue going into the XXV Olympic Winter Games.
It is at times like this when we enjoy our task of scrolling through the socials…
Every athlete has a story worth telling. Whether it’s your first sprint triathlon, a comeback from injury, a breakthrough race, or the quiet consistency that keeps you showing up – we want to hear it. We regularly feature athletes from the 247Endurance community in The Daily Split to spotlight real journeys, lessons learned, and moments that matter. We can’t wait to hear from you!
What did you think of today's email?
That’s your Split. Until Next Time
Together, we go the distance. — @247_endurance 🏃♂️🚴♀️🏊♂️