I was viewing results from the Bahrain 70.3. I believe this race opened really late and it pretty well involves flights for anyone who is not already in Bahrain.
In 2023, I was in Dubai for work the week before and I recall contacting the organizers around ten days before race day when I was leaving Canada to see if I could get in as it was either sold out of “closed” for registration at that point. Well as I turns out they said, “sorry all closed up, sign up for next year” and then on Tuesday when I was in Dubai for work (without any gear because who the heck travels to the other side of the world hauling a bike case just in case), I got an email with a link to register. I kind of looked to see if I could rent something, but was too much of a hassle as I needed to fly elsewhere in Asia for some customer visits and would involve changing flights
310 age groupers looks pretty low. Not bad if you were slot hunting (how far did things roll for anyone there)?
Also did not see age graded pdf in the Ironman app “yet”
Yep it was an absolute disaster in the making. Registration opened not even 2 months before the race by which time most people had signed up for T100 Dubai or Qatar. Plenty of my mates either didn’t race this year because they’re committed to Qatar or just jumped in as a relay team and did 1 or 2 legs only. Last year I think it was closer to 1000 registered (I just checked and there were 957 finishers). Most people obviously travel far and wide to this race so it was always going to be low numbers. Even the number of GCC racers was way way down.
Having said that, the conditions this year were bloody perfect and it was a super fast race. I took 26min off my time from last year and went sub 5 hours for the first time. I think GTB smashed the record for fastest woman’s time ever in a 70.3, but the run course was about 500m short so not sure if it’ll count or not.
The triathlon association have already put their hands up and admitted they dropped the ball on this one and they’re now working on a 3-5 year plan which includes collaborating with the other GCC countries to hopefully come up with some decent seasons of racing. Now that Oman has their Salahah 70.3 in Oct, Mustcat Ironman in Dec and 70.3 in Feb, Qatar announced their 70.3 for March ‘27, Qatar + Dubai having their T100 in Nov and Dec, and the Saudi T100 in November there’s going to have to be some decisions being made about when Bahrain will be run from now on.
I would think the big problem was not announcing race date until super late. I had some friends from Canada thinking about going, but literally if you are flying from ‘further away’ it is more like a 6 month ahead plan.
Congrats on the sub 5. Was it good enough for a slot to Nice 70.3 Worlds? I think there were 60 slots?
Yeah for sure, in 2019 registration was open in like July and for whatever reason it has gotten later and later every year. Everyone here is hoping they sort it out for next year. Most people are planning on doing the full in Oman in December so if they don’t figure it out early enough it’ll be another write off.
And unfortunately not. I was still 19th in my AG. Someone in the next AG up was only 2min up the road from me which was good enough for 8th and he snagged a slot.
30 slots each for both men and women so basically if you were Female and you finished you got a slot.
Not sure what all the complaining is about with odds like that /pink
OK I will keep my eye open for the Bahrain 2026 event (or maybe Qatar 2027) or Muscat. Qatar sounds more convenient given direct flight from Montreal (2 hrs drive). Also looking at Cartagena (also direct flight from Montreal). There is a new 70.3 in San Salvador in Feb that looks really hard with the bike course around 1600m vertical. I’ll watch that one this year to see how it plays out to see if it as an interesting adventure in 2027