4 x 19km laps on the bike. I cant think of anything worse for an AG race! It probably works quite well for the pro racing on the TV, but absolutely no for me!

This year in Ibiza for the World Triathlon race the AG had a different course than the pros. The pros had 4 laps on the highway, the AG had way less laps and a route along rolling hills to the east of the highway.
They haven't announced what the course would be for AG in 2024.

It does say on the front page: “Race the same route as the Pros”.

What is the Refund Policy though? All I can see is that it says: “ Full refund policy will be added here ” in the FAQs.

On the PTO website it says 'race the same route as the pro's'. https://protriathletes.org/events/pto-tour/european-open/age-group/


The AG PTO thing does not excite me at all, it should do, but doesn't. Multi loop bikes are just a no for me. I'd much prefer to see the pro races have interesting bike courses rather than laps of fairly boring road! The Singapore one looks even worse!

During the first year of the PTO AG races they said the same thing "Race the same course as the Pro's", but certainly in Dallas what that meant was you will race at the same venue but both the bike and the run courses were planned to be different, and that was before they shortened the AG race because of heat (who could have expected heat in Dallas in September - I don't know, maybe anyone that has actually lived in Texas).

I was going to scoff at the “reasonable” fees, and then I find out Ironman charged €340 plus 10% for early bird at 70.3 Mallorca…

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"FTP is a bit 2015, don't you think?" - Gustav Iden

From the link: "Join thousands of fellow athletes at Ibiza's defining multisport festival and race on the same roads as the world's top triathletes."
The bike course for the WT Long Distance race at Ibiza earlier this year was a cracker: two long loops (of?60km plus 5km T1 to the rbt and 5km back to T2): "on the same roads" but not the same route iyswim. I hope they take a similar approach in September.
PTO have mis-spoken here: ". . . including the . . . age-group European championships and show-stopping pro racing."
The ETU have got a bit huffy wishing to make it clear that this is NOT the European MD Championships: that is in June.
"the European Championship for Elite and AG on middle distance will be staged in the Multisport Festival that will take place in June 2024. The location and date of the middle distance European Championships (as well as the other European Championships) will be announced next week”."

Am i the only one turned off by the distance itself?
Why did they not keep it at 70.3 distance? Short cpurse hsve shown they can easily battle there, and also allows lc a chance.
18km of running is so wierd! Give me a half marathon at the end so i can compare times to half marathon.

The refund page link used to point to the refund policy for Singapore but has now been changed.

I'm also adding a couple of links related to the clarification by WT/ET.

It does in fact seem like negotiations are still ongoing with world triathlon. https://europe.triathlon.org/...o_ibiza_announcement which is rectifying what has appeared elsewhere https://www.eurosport.com/...o9873685/story.shtml
The PTO sign-up page does however imply an option for representing a country.

There's a bit too many unknowns for me at this point.

What do you mean “keep”? The PTO distance is and always was 100k.

I’m also struggling to understand how 100k wouldn’t allow long course-focused athletes a chance? A chance to do what? Does any age grouper in this forum who trains for 140.6 feel too slow to be competitive at 100k, really?

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"FTP is a bit 2015, don't you think?" - Gustav Iden

I would love something like this with a small field but I doubt that's what this is. There are some challenge races set up like this so it must work out ok in some places. I did IM AZ for my first full last fall & the last lap of the bike was dangerous. Liked the course. Liked knowing where I was. But too much congestion in the back half.

I raced 100k in Samorin and I thought it was quite fun. For being a long distance race you can go hard from the beginning to the end but I agree it's nuances vs a 70.3.
In Samorin it was actually a pretty small field with single lap bike and 4 laps on the run. With the waves staggered you really had a clear idea who you were racing against. I thought it was fun. I don't think it's easily replicable for AGs though. Ibiza this year was already sensibly bigger and a longer distance (the WT long distance) so it's difficult to compare to what a PTO AG race could be.
Following the pros race was really cool at both Ibiza and Samorin.

Does anyone have any insight into where and when the US open will be? I’m growing impatient with scheduling. I wanted to do a PTO race this year but at this rate I’ll just do another Ironman 70.3.

You want predictability? Book a 70.3. You won't get that from Moritz Events!

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

I was excited for the PTO series that was supposed to be announced "in October" but looks like they are struggling indeed. I prefer the 70.3 distance but like the idea to compete under a federation banner, be able to watch the pro race and a lower fee...
I somehow used to love loop courses in my cycling days but after experiencing the congestion on single loop 90km HIM courses I can't imagine what a 4x20km loop course would be for a tri... not sure how many participants they are targeting but pretty sure that it would be a complete sh**show.

Well if it's 4x the loops but 5x fewer athletes, then it would be less congested... Let's see what the field size will be.

Not sure how many participants the PTO AG races had last year but that sounds like a very low number (looking at the average participant number of the IM races I've done you'd have to be at ~500p or less for the same density over 20km). Does IM have any multi-bike loop 70.3? Sounds manageable on a full but not so great for lower distances... I say that but I used to do crits with 50-100p over 0.5-2km so maybe I should just treat it as a crit on aerobars :) could be fun.