B_Doughtie wrote:
So recapping, was the festival 2 weekends in length? How did the locals handle that? How were road closures handled?
So it was Duathlon worlds (regular/sprint) + LC tri + cross (or whatever they call the xterra version) Is that correct?
It was effectively 9 days in length... DL Sprint Du/Elite DL Du (Sat 19), Standard Du (Mon 21), Cross Tri (AG & Elite) (Wed 23), Aquathlon (AG & Elite) (Fri 25), LD Tri/Aquabike (AG & Elite) (Sun 27). All spaced out to convene to the ITU 36hr rule... There was a main closure downtown by the Lakeside resort, where the finish line and elite T-zone was set-up, that was in effect from Wednesday before the festival until the end, and then road closures each race day for the race courses. There were signs everywhere in the days leading up to each race about the upcoming closures. For the most part locals complied (with the obvious towing of a few cars parked on the courses race morning). There were a few issues with frustrated locals, and a few cars driving onto the courses, but at least when I was there, this was very minimal. They tried to vary the courses a bit too, so that they weren't all using exactly the same route, so that they could mix up which roads were closed (except for the obvious ones by transition and the finish) to help reduce the impact on locals. Many of the locals were volunteering or spectating at the events, and largely they were very supportive (many businesses has signs up welcoming athletes and their families). Like any city, there were a few locals who were less thrilled, but their was little noticeable impact. There were tons of spectators for the parade of nations (at least the first one, they did for the Dus and Cross Tri), with many people cheering from their yards, and kids high fiving the athletes.
In terms of Steve King announcing... if he seemed more "easy listening" and less energetic, it was only because he was pacing himself... he announced every race, all festival long, and with the AG/Jr/Elite races for each discipline, there were many long days, I'm amazed that his voice lasted that long. Maybe if you caught him at the end of the week, he was trying to make sure that his voice made it, but there were some very excited calls in some of the early races. He was also speeding through, with many close AG finishes, to try and mention as many athletes as possible (which comes at the expense of the excitement sometimes in the voice).
There were some small kinks for sure, which will happen with any World Champs, especially given this is the first time that they have used this festival format with so many championships in such a short time in the same city. But largely it was successful, enjoyable for the athletes and well run. And there was lots to do in the city as well when not racing, we enjoyed excellent food, there were good breweries/brew pubs, tons of vineyards (it's always a good sign when a race has a wine sponsor, and produces special vintages for the event (that were tasty too, we brought a bottle of the white home)), lots of waterfront activities for families (there was that obstacle course in the water for the kids, and the canal to tube down), some great trails to explore (the KVR Trail was great for morning runs), etc. There were a few athlete vehicle collisions outside of the races around the traffic detour near the TZone/host hotel, as far as I could tell none were too serious (likely a combination of a high number of athletes, from different countries with different traffic laws, not all behaving the same, and the usual impatient driver/drivers not shoulder checking, I didn't see any of the collisions so I can't speak to them directly, but i did see some near misses for the above mentioned reasons).
The only real disappointment was the sizes of the elite fields, which were smaller than expected. But not unsurprising for a race in North America, where it's a bit pricier for many athletes to travel to (Euro races will always have bigger fields, since you have many countries in close proximity for travel, whereas for north america, it's just Canada and the US that are close, even Mexico is a trek). If they had moved the festival up by a week, so follow immediately after the WTS races in Edmonton and Montreal, they might have gotten a few more elites sticking around for the Du/Cross/Aquathlon events, but with it being the week leading up to WTS Stockholm, that was a tougher sell.