Triathlon is so poorly followed a sport that even its premier event next month's IronmanWorld Championship receives no live coverage outside of being streamed onto Ironman's own website.
With his already strong swim improving dramatically, Ironman analysts figured that Armstrong could have won the IronmanWorldChampionship with a marathon time of 2 hours, 55 minutes.
That record had been held by Australia's Chris McCormack, a two-time winner of the IronmanWorldChampionship who subsequently called Armstrong the athlete to beat in Kona this October.