It gets better: various donations to the sports commissions that help either promote or facilitate the event (e.g., $10000 to the Louisville Sports Commission who didn't pay a dime out in grants but spent $118K on "Ironman Event").

There's then the $27000 that went to John Bertsch's LLC, which additionally raises potential issues with inurement.

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Editor-in-Chief, Slowtwitch.com | Twitter

Kelly's analysis is updated here, along with additional research that Dark Mark and I have done. We also reported on the findings over on TRS Radio.

For what it's worth, as has been mentioned, we've requested comment from Mr. Deschenes who has declined to offer any explanation regarding the loan to WTC and its purpose, nor the donations to various sports commissions, nor the $27,000+ given to JMB Management, LLC in 2012.

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Editor-in-Chief, Slowtwitch.com | Twitter

I wouldn't hold out any hope of a response. He was emasculated the day he accepted the job as executive director of the foundation.

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you know my name, look up my number
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He's wise. Circle the wagons and wait it out. Like all ST bitching, it will eventually blow over and the pitchforks will move on. Nothing to be gained by speaking up and fanning the flames.

 But what is alleged is that the foundation is nothing more than a sham. Radio silence seems like a risky strategy.

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you know my name, look up my number
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Radio silence is only a risky strategy because DarkMark and TRS are on the case, so it could go viral like Lake Placid 7th place. Otherwise I'd say to hunker down and let the storm pass.

They can be as quiet as they like as we have them independently audited

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Internet User

I was going to say, I posed a couple hypotheticals to some business beat reporters, and they're intrigued.

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Editor-in-Chief, Slowtwitch.com | Twitter

We could always start a gofund.me to pay for the auditor.

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Internet User

IMO it's a far more worthy cause to crowd source than a trip to a race...

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Editor-in-Chief, Slowtwitch.com | Twitter

Yeah, that's how I understand it. Using charity for profit... legal, but unethical.

All:

And...here we go....

While the numbers of finishers have spiked at all IM/70.3+ events since 2008 so have the donations to the foundation. So have the gifts to local charities that volunteer for these races. No volunteers no race...right?! The sport of triathlon was built by vast support from volunteers on all THREE courses.

The real question now confronting the next owners will be how can a foundation keep supporting race operations in the next business model for the new owners? The top down model of organizing events from long distance and just paying volunteers to show up just might not be a sustaining business model in the near future.

EX: Local 70.3 was the event of events for years in our area. Because it was THE hometown race; grassroots bottom-up organization with LOCAL leadership, volunteer recruitment was time consuming but not stressful. Everyone wanted to help but just needed all the details. About 20-25 chicken dinners all year long at JayCee's, Optimist Clubs or Rotary and no problems...right. And it cost the race $0. We had no issue recruiting 1100-2200 most years.

It takes someone in the local area to make this work. Time consuming means leadership man-hours that someone needs to pay in the post 2010 era. Not done if you have $ to pass out.

2014....Guess what? Not much all year long and a BIG $20,000 check on race week and everyone just shows-up.

What happens to sustainability in the future without the $20,000 spent yearly?
What has happened to the local races that did not have those volunteer $ from 2008-2014?

Big picture...where is our sport going?

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STIndiana
America Multi-Sport, Inc.
America's Half June 10, 2017
USAT RD Century Club
http://www.americamultisport.com

Definitely kind of washes out the meaning of "community" in some ways; you don't build the same relationships, etc. as you do with that local feel.

As for some of the points we've been talking about:

To some extent, IMF can hide behind the name of "hey, we gave this money to a charitable organization, and they just happened to spend it however they saw fit." But it's a little...strange that approximately 10% of all donations is going to various sports commissions that help facilitate the race in some manner.

In order of sketchiness out of my findings thus far:

4.) WTC takes in all Foundation slot monies and then remits them to the Foundation, which it appears it is behind in payments on.
3.) Donations to the various sports commissions
2.) $2.5 million loan to WTC (it *could* be for the purposes of building an endowment...), but there has been a refusal to explain its purpose.
1.) The $27,000 payment to John Bertsch's LLC, the subsequent "removal" of Diana Bertsch from the Foundation's VP position during this point in time in one part of the 2012 990, yet still being mentioned in all of the comments below in the disclosures of relationships/ties for disclosure purposes.

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Editor-in-Chief, Slowtwitch.com | Twitter