Twitter, facebook, gavinnoble.com, triathlonteam.org, WADA (!), my whereabouts are continually being updated. At the moment I am in Yokohama Japan for the next round of the ITU World Series. This morning I was riding on the course and was stopped at a traffic light when an old dude rocks up beside me with a fishing rod on a Specialized New York Langster ! He was the coolest old Japanese man I had ever seen - he checked me out as I was checking him out, he dropped a gear and totally burnt me off when the light went green ! That has been my Yokohama highlight so far.

This year the ITU introduced a new level of racing which is called "The ITU World Championship Series" - a 7 race series in major cities around the World, culminating in a World Championship final which this year will be held in September in Australia.

The series is broadcast live on televison and with an increased prize purse seeks to pit the best athletes against each on an on-going basis - ie. instead of just 1 World Championship per year where everyone turns up fit and ready the ITU hope to raise the level of competition throughout the year.

The new series has increased the ITU's appeal to sponsors with its live broadcasts, highlight shows and live streaming on the internet. The benefits of this increased exposure trickles it's way to the athletes competing with more market opportunites for sponsors. However there are negatives to moving our biggest shows from the established World Cup venues to captial cities such as London or Washington DC who do not have as yet a strong triathlon history- it will take a little bit of time to estabilish the events and more local promotion is needed. From an athletes point of view it is obviously exciting to be racing in down-town Washington but it is not very exciting to be cycling around Capital Hill with only our coaches in attendance.

More crowds I say, more marketing and promotion and more Japanese 80yr old fishermen on Langsters