Seth Rider came away from Paris 2024 with an Olympic silver medal in the mixed team relay. He also came away with a decision most people would have made the other way. Before the Games, he had told his friends that if he got a medal, he was switching straight to Ironman. Once the noise settled, he realised he still had things he wanted to do in short course. So he is not switching. He is pointing at LA 2028.
In the meantime, he is racing both formats at once. A second place at Gulf Coast 70.3 in May. A SuperTri round this past week. The IRONMAN 70.3 World Championships in Nice in a matter of days. A WTCS Grand Final at Olympic distance shortly after that. We caught up with him on the Nice course itself to talk about the Paris decision, the year, the new AB03 setup, and a race that most people are analysing wrong.
Paris, LA, and the Decision That Almost Went the Other Way
The clean narrative from any Olympic medal is that the athlete either doubles down on the format that produced it, or takes the leverage and switches into whatever they had always been curious about. Seth started, briefly, in the second camp. Then he changed his mind.
Q: An Olympic silver medal at Paris. Is the goal to go for it again in LA? What would a home Olympics mean to you?
Actually, before Paris I told all my friends that if I got a medal I would switch directly to Ironman. But once everything calmed down after Paris, I realised I had much more I wanted to do in short course racing, and I wanted to do everything I can to go to LA 2028 and perform at my best. To be able to hopefully share the moment with more friends and family would be awesome.
That decision, silver medallist eyeing Ironman and then choosing to stay in short course for a home Olympics, is the most useful compass for reading everything Seth has done since. LA is the pole star. The rest of the calendar is either directly on the way there, or a deliberate stress-test of the fitness that has to be there when it matters.
The 70.3 Side of the Year
If LA is the pole star, the 70.3 racing is the honest side experiment. The distance is not the day job, but it is not a hobby either. It is where he is finding out what his engine looks like when the racing is longer than the format he trains for every day.
Q: How was your experience with the 70.3 racing you did earlier in the year?
I have really enjoyed my 70.3 racing over the last few seasons. I think it’s a distance that really suits me. This year I raced Gulf Coast 70.3 in May, where I was second. It was a crazy race; some super-fast conditions and a flat course made for a crazy fast bike split.
I felt like it was my best all-around 70.3 I had done, and it was another learning opportunity on how I can manage short course and 70.3s together.
Training for Two Very Different Days at Once
Most athletes at Seth’s level specialise for a reason. A 45-minute WTCS race and a 3.5-hour 70.3 are, on paper, two different sports with a swim in common. The training sessions look nothing alike, and the peaking windows fight each other. We asked him how the build was structured.
Q: You recently raced in SuperTri and are now prepping for 70.3 Worlds. How was the training leading up to two such different demands of racing?
While the racing is very different, I find the training is more similar than people expect. At the end of the day, triathlon is an aerobic sport, so we need to do the volume regardless of whether we are training for a 45-minute race or a 3.5-hour one.
A few weeks after Nice 70.3 Worlds, I have the WTCS Grand Final over the Olympic distance, so I actually focused my training on that with the hope that I can have a good race going up and down in distance. I did try to use my TT bike as much as possible, knowing that it is the bike I am not used to as much. I just jumped back on my road bike the last week or so before SuperTri.
Inside the AB03
For a short-course athlete moving between the road bike and the TT bike inside the same training week, a cockpit that behaves predictably and does not flex under load is not a luxury feature. It is what makes the TT bike usable at short notice.
Q: You have been on the AB03 for a couple of weeks now. How have you liked them, and what stands out the most compared with other front ends you have used?
From the moment I took the bars out of the box, I was just impressed with the overall build quality and how refined a product the AB03 is. It was also super easy to put together, and everything just fit perfectly. There was no stressing about how things go together; it was just simple, and you can tell everything was thought through in the design process.
The ride experience has been awesome. Compared to my previous setup, it just feels way more solid. The bars aren’t bouncing up and down all the time like many other setups I’ve tried. You just get into position and feel locked in.
Nice: The Climb Everyone Is Talking About, and the Descent Nobody Is
One of the useful things about talking to an athlete on the actual race course, hours after they have ridden it, is that they see the parts of the day the pre-race chatter does not. Everyone talks about the Nice climb. Almost nobody outside the athletes is talking about what happens after the top.
Q: We might be biased, but it seems like everyone is talking about the climb in Nice and no one is taking into consideration how critical the descent will be. Bike handling has been one of your strengths. How do you see this race playing out?
Yes, after riding the course for the first time today, I think of course the climb will be crucial, but the descent is almost just as important. I think at the front of the race you will see some people who can really take advantage of the descent to either try to get away or get back to someone who got away on the climb.
Personally, I am looking to ride the climb aggressively but within myself, and save a little bit to push over the top and try to use the descent to come back to anyone who may have gotten away from me on the climb. I think many of the other athletes that come from a short course background will also be able to use the descent to their advantage, compared to some long course athletes that may be used to riding more straightforward TT courses.
That last observation is the one to mark before Saturday. The pre-race narrative around Nice has been almost entirely about the climb. Seth’s read, that the descent is where the race actually gets decided, and that the short-course-schooled bike handlers will quietly have the edge over the pure TT specialists on the way back down, is the insider’s version of the same question. Watch the top of the descent when the racing starts. It will tell you a lot about who is going to be in the finish.
