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Another National Honor For Tony?

Sunday, 12 January 2020 23:10

There seems to be two categories of Elite Age Group athletes. The largest category is comprised of men and women who score within the parameters of recognized performance standards. The smaller "eliter" category consists of those who are capable of setting new standards, and sometimes do just that.

They are the "bar raisers."

Who are some of the male bar raisers? 2018, 2017 USAT Master of the Year LEE WALTHER, 56, of Oklahoma City is certainly one, as are Midwesterners TONY SCHILLER (61, Chanhassen, MN) and GREG TAYOR (65, Yankton, SD).

Tony and Greg are two of the most decorated American AG triathletes ever, and both appear destined to be 2019 USA Triathlon Grand Master of the Year finalists. Greg took home the GMOY in 2017 and 2015. Tony became eligible for the award in 2018, and, in our opinion, raced well enough to be named GMOY Honorable Mention, but was overlooked....

We are reasonable sure that Tony will be overlooked this time around.

Both Tony and Greg won their divisions at Olympic Nationals; Tony by the hefty margin of 3:51; Greg by the even heftier margin of 10:51.

Tony and Greg also won their AGs at Sprint Nationals; Greg by 1:23; Tony by 1:00.

Also on Tony's resume were two 8th-place (Lake Minnetonka and Heart of the Lakes)  overall finishes, in each of which his time was faster than everyone age-50 and above.

Greg (photo R) also won his AG at Hawaii 70.3, where his margin of victory was 37:20, and at Minneapolis Olympic, where his 2:11:41 placed him 24th overall and proved to be the fastest time for all men age 50-and-over. A typical winning time for 65-69 men at Minneapolis is in the 2:50 range, though the previous AG record was 2:26:06, set by Nevis' Neil King in 2014.

Though Taylor had an untaylorlike performance at Kona (5th AG), where he has amassed numerous 1st-place trophies, we believe that he, once again, deserves USAT's 2019 GMOY award.

And we believe that Schiller was a close 2nd.

Now, what will USAT determine? We're anxious to find out.