synthetic wrote:
i know flight/hotel costs are difficult to control (for one choose airbnb instead of hotel).... but come on USAT - do you think its right to have these excessive costs for registration and team kit? most aquathlon races are less than $100. A full kit can be had at $120. That being said, many high ranking competitive individuals do not make a lot of money wont be able to afford the $300 registration and $250 race kit, thus USA will not have good representation at world championships.
Costs in tri dilute the competition... might as well do ironman - or - 10 local competitive races at these costs
As our national governing body, USAT offers national championships and the opportunity to make Team USA for AG worlds as a SERVICE. Unlike the Olympics where the goal really is to field medal contenders, USAT's job with age groupers is pretty much just to make sure the administrative bases are covered. If Team USA age groupers actually do well, that's a bonus, but not the intended goal ... as evidenced by the actions of the entire enterprise, not by whatever they might say the goal is.
As to registration and race kit...yep, they are high. But really, in a sport where tens of thousands of folks are popping $300 for a half and $700+ for a full, do you think the registration fee is really an issue? And when it comes to tri-suits the issue is not that $250 is too high (e.g., the Kiwami LD Aero Trisuit is $379), the real issue is that for $250 you can get much better quality than USAT is providing through their sponsorship with Tyr.
The real cost limiter on the AG Worlds is always determined by the location relative to the competitor's home address. Flight costs for the athlete and family, plus hotel, meals, local transportation, and any follow-on travel dwarf the registration fee and race kit expense. So if your premise is that USAT could have fielded a more competitive team by merely reducing registration from say $300 to $200, and the kit from say $250 to $150 for a net savings of $200 on what can easily be a $5K or more trip ... then I think you are flat wrong.