Slowman wrote:
our resident provocateur, publiusvalerius, originated a thread that had - if you looked way down deep - a valid and timely premise: that for many our sport has gotten out of reach financially. that thread spawned a number of offshoots, but the OP himself wrote at some point along the way something to the effect of: we are now having a discussion.
if the discussion is that there are unavoidable, systemic, required costs that attach to anyone who wants to race triathlon, and that these costs push people away, i have no quarrel with that. further, i agree with that, and have a number of articles in publishing queue on this topic.
i am eager to hear what you all have to say.
I replied with a rather lengthy response to the original thread which I'm not sure why has disappeared.....don't feel like doing a full repeat. Short version is I don't think triathlon is different than any other sport. You don't have to spend a lot to participate, especially in shorter Sprint and OLY distance racing, which is what I assume the distances the vast majority of newbies do when they start out in the sport. It's like any other sport.....you want to play golf on TPC type courses the cost will be significantly higher than playing on a local public course.....doesn't mean you cant enjoy the sport. You want to do a few WTC 70.3s and 140.6s every year, sure, it will be expensive. Around here (Phila/NJ, there are numerous local Sprint races for under $100. I may be missing something here with triathlon but golf, tennis, bowling, (who knows what else) have been also declining. Demographics change, priorities change.....it's not cost. Anyone here stopped participating totally in the sport because of cost increases?