Not exactly relevant to 70 .3NH, but has anyone looked into race entry fee reimbursement through 365competitor? I noticed that FS Series here in NC was one of their biggest supporters, so at this point it looks like 365 is only getting bites from little fish. My understanding is that this is something the RD purchases (like an insurance policy) in the hopes of increasing early registration.

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I tweet!

I received an email from Ironman, but Pocono was not listed as an option for the 50.00 discount. When and how did you get a 65.00 discount for Pocono?

Active.com emailed National Harbor entrants with a code (ACTIVE65) that would supposedly get us $65 off the Pocono entry (making it $210). However, I had no luck using the code.

Well, now we have our answer:

Dear Athlete,

The Ironman 70.3National Harbor Triathlon was cancelled because not enough athletes were registered for the event.

Initially we kept quiet because Ironman asked us to stay silent, not post anything on social media and not send out any press releases so that the damage to Ironman’s brand would be minimized. We were fools to agree and that was a big mistake on our part.

We should have communicated immediately and told you the reason from the start. We have nothing to hide from the truth and were just initially intimidated by Ironman's request.

We apologize.


[moderator's note: the edit executed here was for typesize. nothing in the text of this post was changed.]

Whoa.

Not sure where you got this but it was also posted as a response by Chuck Brodsky to Ray Maker's blog post (dcrainmaker.com) where he also indicates that the losses from the event were in the 6 figure range.

I just received the email as well.

+1 me too. So disappointing, there really isn't another race that fits in my timeline.

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Twitter: @jayasports
Web: http://www.jayasports.com

Wow!

This is akins to walking into your boss' office and say "F** you! I quit!" It may feel good at the time, but reflects badly on you, your professionalism, and your future endeavors. The man should have taken the high road and just said, "we're sorry for the cancellation and lack of communications, but due to the lack of registrant, we made the painful decision to cancel the event."

Classless!

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

I would take this with a grain of salt, but even if there is just the smallest element of truth to it it's kind of ironic. Brodsky has been chasing for an IM event in Washington, DC area since at least 2006. He finally got his wishes and clearly now must wish he had never entered into a relationship with them.

Classless? He didn't say Ironman was a bunch of Dbags and he hopes they rot in hell. He gave the reason why they didn't speak up for it. This is more like a partnership where one guy wants to keep quiet about the failure and the other one thinks he's going to get screwed by keeping quiet. Ironman I can assure you doesn't give a crap about his business, why should he care about damaging Ironman's when they were trying to force him to do something he didn't want to.

I see, so telling the truth is classless?
The classy thing to do is to hide the truth and support higher powers when they are douchebags?

No wonder the world is messed up, with attitudes like yours.

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Kat Hunter reports on the San Dimas Stage Race from inside the GC winning team
Aeroweenie.com -Compendium of Aero Data and Knowledge
Freelance sports & outdoors writer Kathryn Hunter

Institutionalized

This is he said/she said. How do we know what he is saying is true? This kind of argument should stay in house. No need to throw anyone under the bus by placing blame on them in such a public manner. The classy thing to do would be to say what I said.

If the Ironman didn't give a crap about his business, they wouldn't have partnered up with him in the first place. They wouldn't have bought out his DCTri race. It's a partnership, they loose if he loose so they do care on some level. Again, we don't know the whole story. It's classless to air dirty laundry publicly like that.

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

Jack ... we don't know the truth. We only know one side. Do you know the truth? I've only heard one side so far.

The world is messed up because attitudes like yours that take one side of the story as gospel. How do we know that Chuck isn't the one that was the douchebag behind the scene demanding crazy things from WTC?

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

I wonder if this will start to have a chilling effect on all new ironman brand events. I know that I would think hard a about getting in a first year event again. Seems like it would be tough to grow a brand when you cancel all your new races.

Probably would have helped the race if they had actually applied for permits to hold the event on the roads of Maryland. As I understand they met with the Maryland Highway Administration last week and were met with skepticism and "shenanigans" from the folks there.

Bob

Not sure where the previous quote came from, but this was from the email .. Which is slightly different. Perhaps the other one was a modification on the original Facebook page.

"Dear Athletes,
The Ironman 70.3 National Harbor Triathlon was cancelled because not enough athletes were registered for the event.

Ironman asked us to stay silent, not post anything on social media and not send out any press releases so that the damage to Ironman’s brand would be minimized. We were fools to agree and that was a big big mistake on our part.

We should have communicated immediately and told you the reason from the start. We were definitely wrong not to do so and apologize. The six figure financial loss from the event was more than we could manage."

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

I agree with you. Their response seems very emotional and burns that bridge. Placing blame so publicly is probably not the best option.

I didn't take one side as gospel any more or less than you did, dude.

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Kat Hunter reports on the San Dimas Stage Race from inside the GC winning team
Aeroweenie.com -Compendium of Aero Data and Knowledge
Freelance sports & outdoors writer Kathryn Hunter

If its true, it is the best option. Honesty always is.
If it isn't true, then of course it is not the best option.

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Kat Hunter reports on the San Dimas Stage Race from inside the GC winning team
Aeroweenie.com -Compendium of Aero Data and Knowledge
Freelance sports & outdoors writer Kathryn Hunter

If you didn't take one side as gospel any more or less than me then what is your issue with my attitude? You seem to imply that he was telling the truth, whereas I'm saying that we don't know what the truth is and for him to come out and throw WTC under the bus like that that was classless. They should handle that among themselves without throwing mud in public.

Anyway, to add more fuel to the fire, here is a tweet from WTC.
[Disclosure: I'm not mjpanarella]

Ironman Triathlon ‏ @IronmanTri
@mjpanarella we are as surprised as u and dont have a clear answer either. If you have more questions u can contact WSEM at info@wseminc.com

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

I agree. Honesty is best policy. We will probably never know the real details. It's the publicity that seems unnecessary.

Any idea of how many people were actually entered?

Is it therefore fair to say that WTC's attitude towards their customers here is "go fish?". Brodsky has now burned his bridges with both his customers and his partners, I didnt think (and still dont) that WTC would go down the same path.

I'm curious why they didn't start pushing it harder to get more registered athletes if that was the case. How many athletes were registered, 200? 500? 1000? Everyone was complaining about the choice of date(hot/humid) and the Potomac so perhaps that limited the signups.

You would think a few months ago they could work with WTC and get the word out that they need more registered participants or it would have the chance of being canceled. Just seems weird that WTC wouldn't want them to actually try to get more participants to me.

What bothers me about the whole thing (and this was to be my first Ironman event), is that we as athletes take on a lot of personal risk when signing up for the tri. If we are injured and can't compete, tough shit. If our flight is cancelled and we don't make it there in time, tough shit. If the weather doesn't cooperate and they cancel the swim, tough shit.

If WTC doesn't do their job and properly promote the event (and get a certain critical mass of athletes? TOUGH SHIT. I'm just glad that this is not an event I had to buy plane tickets in order to get to. I learned my lesson though. WTC can take their $50 coupon and shove it. I'm already signed up for Rev3 Maine.