No WTC does not have a hold on World Championship on anything. It is only the ITU under IOC that has. Once again it is typical that on this side of Atlantic they call everything Worlds.....It is not. WTC is not an international governing body of the sport of triathlon. ITU is.

The WTC has it in name only. Challenge seems to be quite popular in Europe and I can see the idea taking off. Once they expand a bit more into the US you might very well see competing "championships" for the full distance.

Felix has sated that he does not want to make a Roth a qualification only event ... he prefers to keep it open so that anyone that wants can have the opportunity to race there

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Dave Latourette
http://www.TTENation.com

That's awfully nice of him. I guess he isn't as much of a greedy cash cow as the WTC is.

As someone said, Felix has no interest in making Roth a world championship. Anyone who can get signed up can race.

Do we really need another arbitrary world championship? No.

No, but my point is that I wonder if the series would grow and be even more popular if there were full and half distance qualifying events. If they don't want to do that (which I don't think they do), then that is fine. I agree we certainly don't need two WC races, seems dumb.

Sure, it might, but then it would be just like the WTC races... and that would ruin everything people like about Challenge.

If you need an ego-stroke.... go race mdot.

Lots of series have "championship" events. WTC's championship events are in Kona and Tremblant this year. Our local XC ski clubs have season long events and then championships etc etc. I think Challenge could have a series championship at Roth, for say 1500 folks via qual and then leave the rest open to general entry. The general entry sells out instantly, so the championship through qual would give people a way to get in via their local Challenge event, and thereby drive some additional traffic to the local events for the people who decided "later" that they want to do Roth. I think this may also help grow some of the new event. Even if it brings in 50 extra athletes, that's 50 more than zero extra athletes.

It's been 21 years since I did Roth, and would like to go back some time, but don't want to commit a year out to it. Same reason I won't do Frankfurt or Austria.

I don't see it. Challenge will always be the cute little brother to Ironman. The large majority of people want to go to Kona vs Roth. The fastest pros are going to race Kona and treat it as the World Championship. I've never heard anyone say that some athlete who didn't compete in Kona is the real world champion.

Things may change with Challenge Bahrain. 500k Price purse and I bet they will up the purse for Roth as well in the next years. The start list this year is the best you get outside of Kona - only a hand full of top level guys are missing. And since the Pros need to make money they will for sure migrate to the races which give them the highest cash. Kona is becoming more and more unattractive for AGers and it might not take too long until the Pros don't give a damn either. Roth has a bigger media attention in Germany than Kona gets.

NO ONE has a hold on a World Championship and there is no such thing as a "real" world championship despite any organizational claims to the contrary. All that exists are world championships of various degrees of credibity, and that credibility is earned based on the quality and depth of the competition that actually shows up. When you have the best athletes then you are the recognized world championship. Kona currently meets that test for iron distance races; the ITU doesn't even contest the distance, and their long course "world championship" isn't remotely as competitive as Kona. ITU has no say on this. Let Challenge set up their own world championship, raise the prize money and let us see over time which has the more credible competition.

Call it anyway you recognize it.

"Kona is becoming more and more unattractive for AGers" Really? I don't see it that way.

$500K prize purse for Challenge Bahrain? Where does that money come from (certainly not from races with a few hundred entrants) and how long will they be able to keep doing that? I hope they don't over-extend themselves and go bankrupt.

Quote:

NO ONE has a hold on a World Championship and there is no such thing as a "real" world championship despite any organizational claims to the contrary. All that exists are world championships of various degrees of credibity, and that credibility is earned based on the quality and depth of the competition that actually shows up. When you have the best athletes then you are the recognized world championship. Kona currently meets that test for iron distance races; the ITU doesn't even contest the distance, and their long course "world championship" isn't remotely as competitive as Kona. ITU has no say on this. Let Challenge set up their own world championship, raise the prize money and let us see over time which has the more credible competition.

Yep.

Challenge is a much much bigger deal in Europe and thats where they make the money. Roth sells out within minutes and therefore much faster than the IM in Frankfurt with 100 Kona slots (which is still open a week after opening). Challenge has a hard life in North America because of the people saying "Well, it's not a real Ironman". But that's not the crowd they want to target anyways.

Kona is now 825$ entry fee. In a couple of years we will be approaching 1000$. Not the best will go but the ones which have too much money on their hands.

Really?

Is that why more and more people apply for the lottery every year?

Is that why the legacy program has been greeted with a lot of applause?

Is that why you see a lot of posts on here asking what the rolldown for race X is?

Is that why you see a lot of posts on here asking what the Kona slots AG breakdown or number of Kona slots for race X is?

Is that why folks come on here and ask how come they don't expand Kona by a few hundred slots?

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My marathon PR is "under three, high twos. I had a two hour and fifty-something."

Then explain to me how come Challenge Copenhagen doesn't sell out, but when Ironman took it over and it sells out? I did Challenge Copenhagen the year before they sold it to WTC. Race still had slots until the week of the race. WTC takes over the following year, and the slots are all gone.

In Europe, outside of Roth, can you tell me what other Challenge Races sell out? On top of my head, the following WTC races sell out over there ... Frankfurt, Sweden, Copenhagen, Austria.

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My marathon PR is "under three, high twos. I had a two hour and fifty-something."

Are you clueless? It comes from Bahrain! The prince probably has several cars worth more than that... pocket change.

World's are in Edmonton this year. ;)

Sure Challenge can have their own "world's" just like WTC has "world's". I think it's a great idea and I think they should cockblock WTC as much as possible and have their race at some similarly stunning location. How about Maui? Then get CBS or ABC to produce a motivational TV program about it....

Ummm, I think you might be wrong on this as in swimming, track and field, and cycling, their world championships are, AFAIK, organized and conducted under the auspices of their respective international org, i.e. FINA for swimming, UCI for cycling, etc. My understanding is that ITU is that org for triathlon and that ITU has agreed with WTC that the Kona race is indeed the official ITU-sanctioned world championship race for iron distance tri. I may be be wrong here and really I have no dog in this fight since I only rarely race over the OD but this is my understanding.

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

Fixed that for you ;)

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My marathon PR is "under three, high twos. I had a two hour and fifty-something."

It's not about selling out races. You can sell out a race if you cut it at 100 participants. We see what it leads to when WTC squeezes too many people on a course. I prefer a race with 1000 participants over a race with 3000 since it's a fair game on the bike. What I am trying to say is that Challenge is indeed a popular racing series in Europe compared to North America. I see the reasons for that mostly in the way they market the races.

And I do believe once the Pros make a move to the more attractive series for them the media attention will logically shift this way too. Kona will always be a big race, no doubt. But there is also not few people who take a Roth spot over a Kona slot.

People are hung up on doing an Ironman and that's WTC's thing. They have races to get into "more prestigious" races, and I think that is what really works for them. People want to compete to get into Kona and 70.3 worlds.

It is my opinion, if Challenge did something similar for full and half distance races, then more people would be inclined to do their races and they could grow them more. Personally, I know Challenge St. Andrews here in Canada appeared to be an awesome event and people had great things to say about it. I don't necessarily feel like I need to go all the way out to the east coast of Canada to get a finish time in a half iron race, but if it was a qualifier to get into their championship race against other top athletes, I would be more inclined. Just my 2 cents.

Why?