Would have thought it's a bit early to worry about reducing the numbers. Who knows what restrictions will be in place by the middle of next year. They could have just offered transfers to other events, I'm sure there are plenty of Americans who would not mind doing this due to uncertainty over when they will be able to cross the border.

Is IMMT privately owned? I know Cozumel is, which is why people were unable to transfer to that race, so maybe that is the reason?

I don't think it is private owned, but not positive.

Agree that this is a good opportunity for those outside of Canada to take a refund and not worry about quarantine or other issues that may still be present.

Note - I initially received two emails from the Mont Tremblant organization offering the refund, and just now, about 15 mins later, I just got the same two emails but sent from WTO, so guessing its not a private race.
Basically the same as the deferral stuff - if you want to still do the race, you do nothing, otherwise you follow links in the emails to Active to request refund..

I am registered for IMMT. I haven't received that email. Maybe to Canadians only for now???

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Favorite Gear: Dimond | Cadex | Desoto Sport | Hoka One One

I find emails from Ironman, like early registration offers etc, rarely go out to everyone at the same time, sometimes days apart, who knows. But here is the body of the email:




We are excited to welcome you back to racing at the sold out 2021 IRONMAN Mont-Tremblant triathlon. As we look forward to the event we want to share some pertinent information with our registered athletes.

Given the exceptional circumstances of this sold out event, we have decided to accept athlete entry fee refund requests up until December 11, 2020. Please note, however, that if you do cancel your registration to receive a refund, you will likely not be able to later purchase an entry to the sold out 2021 event at a later date.

Please use the below link to request a refund for this event. If you would like to compete on August 22, 2021, you do not need to take action.

If you have any additional, please email us at monttremblant@ironman.com.


<link to active>

I just got the same emails for the Tremblant 70.3. I honestly don't know what I'm going to end up deciding.

I want the full Ironman experience, not some watered down version.

I've also been chasing injuries all year, so not in the best shape...getting the refund would be a big weight lifted off me and dial back the pressure...but I also want to race.

Interesting. They are definitely trying to whittle down the size of the field. My guess is that some governing body told them there's no way they are ever going to approve 2500-3000 people so IM needs to get it down to some smaller predetermined amount.

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Favorite Gear: Dimond | Cadex | Desoto Sport | Hoka One One

I don't think it will be -that- watered down.

I assume the main 'watered down' differences, if the race happens at all, will be:

- probably less competitors
- no large finisher tent hang out
- no in person pre-race meeting

If you are waiting for those things to change back to pre-covid, you may be in for a long wait.

Ha!

That's an interesting dilemma. I'm registered for IMMT 70.3 2021, but live in the US. Without need to cross the border, the probability of racing something like Musselman or Main in US is probably higher.
But they want a decision by Dec, 11 and there will probably be no new information on Covid front before Dec, 11.

EDIT: I was wrong. I should sometimes get my head from the aero position and read some news. Just noticed all 70.3s 2021 are sold out already. Well, then the choice is clear: IMMT 70.3 or bust!

My guess, they are trying to keep the gov out of their refund policy and they probably get some subsidies for lost revenue (it's Quebec we are talking about)

Did hell freeze over?

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Dimond Bikes Superfan

I'm registered for the full and Canadian and have not yet received that email. FYI

I think it may be only for the Mont Tremblant 70.3 even in June.

There are some govt programs for employee wage subsidy and rent subsidy if your revenue is down depending on what criteria your company accounting is using relative to the various federal govt mandated baselining period (either month over month revenue compared to same month in 2019, or monthly revenue down relative to the average of Jan+Feb 2020 revenues). And it depends on your accounting baseline and if you are using cash based accounting or accrual based. Also if you chose one of the federal govt baseline approaches back in April when these programs first came out, then you can't change your baseline comparison approach subsequently. So there are many financial engineering levers that any business needs to look at to see how they get the best impact from any govt assistance to get through this period.

It is totally viable, that if you know you are going to have to partially refund at some point in the future then you MAY want to refund NOW so your topline changes now to make you eligible for the programs. Its totally possible in a subsequent period when they know they will not be eligible, they open up registration, get revenue then, but not lose the current govt assistance now.

On my side, I am hoping they refund many people now and open up registations say in April, at which point I would be happy to register for one or both.

Nope, I got separate emails for both events, they offered the refund to me for both events.
Friends of mine who are registered for the 70.3 also got the email. Maybe its only for those who registered directly and not a transfer? I have no idea, but like I said, there have been times in the past where tremblant sent out notifications like early registration links to some people and others were delayed by a few days.

Unfortunately, I don't think the full Ironman experience exists any more, at least under the Ironman brand.

Is it possible the refund offer only went to athletes who were located in the US? Perhaps a way to reduce the field and avoid problems if the border doesn't open?

No, lots of folks in Canada, including Quebec, received the emails.

There is also a chance the the Quebec government has plans for phased turn on for larger crowd gatherings, and perhaps getting registrations under a certain number ensures they can have an event at X theshold and if threshold increased to Y, then they just reopen registration to Y-X new registrations. This way they can plan for an event of size X versus nothing at all (assuming X<Y)

with those events still over half a year away and vaccines on the way i find it surprising. Specially considering how keen they must be to return to normal operations and how traditionally trying to pry refund from them has been waste of time

I'll go out on a limb and say Canada has been more....conservative?....than the US in terms of allowing things to open up. Florida for example has, what, 6000-8000 positives a day? And they want business as usual. Here in Nova Scotia we have something like 20 total -active- cases and we still have some restrictions in place and the health authority is telling people to smarten up, and issuing daily warnings/lists of where possible exposures have taken place.

Quebec is ~ 1000 positives a day now and the province is basically code red or whatever they call it, forcing some businesses to close for now, and are contemplating shutting the schools for a few extra weeks at Christmas. Chances of them allowing a 3000 person triathlon to happen in June are slim to none. Even reduced numbers, like 1000, I'd say still near zero chance.

And for those of you in the US - borders were closed to driving traffic for past 6+ months? I don't think that is gonna change any time soon when you now have like 170k positives in the US per day and climbing. So you may find yourself still having to fly in, and two week quarantine.....who knows.

The vaccine news - its great, but it is going to take a lot longer than June before it is widely distributed and taking effect, but I hope I am wrong. :)

Would this have anything to do with the class action lawsuit that was filed against Ironman?

"The Mont-Tremblant IRONMAN Class Action Lawsuit is Joanne Picard v. Ironman Canada Inc. et World Triathlon Corporation, Case No. 500-06-001093-208, in the Superior Court of Québec, District of Montreal."

Saw that, yeah who knows. Could be that, could be the organization knows they likely won't be able to host 3000 people and are trying to cut numbers, dunno...

Hoping to receive the email soon, I emailed them but never heard.

Figured this was the sign I'm done with the sport....haven't been able to get back into the sport (and especially how hard it is to get pool time) and balance my newer hobbies. Meh.

Serious question. Why would you quit the sport just because races are not going on?

This question is obviously loaded and directed to more people than you. There is another great side of the sport that exists without events...just training to exercise and push ones own physical limits (like those people who go to the gym and lift, but never go into competitions). Its a great sport with or without competitions.

I am actually hoping that this pandemic gets people into the sport who just got active doing the sport individual components outside because their usual forms or exercise were locked up. These people are exercising for health and well being, not for competition. I think those new entrants when we have racing (or not) will be a great addition.

I am not disparaging people doing this sport only for racing (I have done 31 Ironmans myself so I totally get the attraction of the races), but it would be great if we can get more people excited about just going out to swim, ride, run for health and exercise first rather than any particular finish line.