monty wrote:
What happened to this race?
As someone pointed out, it was owned by Charlie Lincoln, and i'm guessing he just got tired of losing money, or barley breaking even. In its heyday they had some big casino sponsors i believe, and they would put up the big $10k 1st prize money. Over the years the course just got too tough for most and the numbers fell off, not that they were big to begin with. It will be interesting to see what the ironman moniker does for the race. I see in ST. Geroge that the course difficulty is most likely the reason that the numbers declined and the race now cancelled. I have to tell you guys, Tahoe is waaaay harder than St. Geroge. Double the climbing, swim at altitude, in fact do the entire race at very high altitudes. I guess i should wait to see the course 1st, but i did a lot of training up there in my day, and unless you go around the lake, there is no easy course. Even around the lake is harder than virtually every other ironman.
I hope it survives, the course was iconic in our history and would be a shame it it bit the dust a 2nd time, just because it was too hard. Out of the million+ triathletes out there now, surly there are a couple thousand that still seek an adventure and a tough course?
Monty, the year I did it in 1993, I think there was 200 between the full race and the sprint. Hard to make money off that. I think the race also suffered from a lack of active marketing. The marketing was huge in the days of Lemond/Molina and then declined somewhat. There were also around 20 Kona slots in 1993. Don't know when they lost their Kona slots, but that probably did not help. The reality is that the course was too tough for all but the few that wanted adventure. I hate to say it, but even back in 1993, a lot of people did not want to go "THAT" far and not get "credit" for doing a full Ironman even though it was tougher than most. While the older generation looks down at the bucket list crowd today, "we" were no different back then. Everyone want to go do Roth and "get a fast time". I actually had 1993 lined up to do both Roth and WTT. I wanted to get a "fast time" at Roth like everyone else and I wanted to just accomplish a finish at WTT and cover both ends of the spectrum....alas, a 2 flat day at Roth derailed going sub 10 (keep in mind there was no Arizona or Florida then to get "fast times"....it was Roth or nothing).
With WTT lined up in the week before IMC, most folks from California were going to IMC even in 1993. There were more people at IMC from California than there were at WTT. At IMC, California was the biggest contingent of athletes from any US state or Canadian Province (it was like a home course event for people from California). Not like IMC was an easy course, but it appealed to a lot more people as "doable" vs slogging through a survival run at Tahoe. I don't think that climbing and descending Monitor Pass was for the rank and file athlete. You'd have to be pretty hard core to relish the pain and the risk associated with that. It is not something that has mass appeal. I would not send most of the athletes in my training group to do the old WTT....they simply would not be capable.
Even the new Tahoe course, I would be reluctant to recommend it to half of my athletes, because they'd be in over their heads due to lack of fitness at altitude, but the other half could easily do it. Only the pointy end of my group could do the WTT and walk on Monday.
