Iran War Leads to Postponement of WTCS Abu Dhabi

Triathlon Forum
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Photo: Tommy Zaferes/ World Triathlon

With the current situation in the Middle East, it comes as absolutely no surprise that World Triathlon has announced the postponement of the World Triathlon Championship Series (WTCS) Abu Dhabi.

After the United States and Israel started bombing the country last Saturday, Iran began firing missiles into other middle-eastern countries, including the United Arab Emirates. That led to the closure of all the airports in the country. While the airspace has partially reopened, flights remain very limited in the UAE, but the airspace remains closed in Qatar and Bahrain. As of March 2, the US Department of State “ordered non-emergency US government employees and US government family members to leave the United Arab Emirates due to the threat of armed conflict.”

Canadians are being told to avoid all travel to the UAE, and those in the country “should shelter in place until commercial flights resume,” according to the government website.

“The Elite individual races, the Para triathlon Cup and the Elite Mixed Relay event have been postponed to a later date, which will be announced in due course,” World Triathlon’s release stated.

The age-group community races will still be held as planned on March 28 and 29.

That means that the first WTCS event of 2026 will be in Samarkand, Uzbekistan on April 26. If the Abu Dhabi event is held before the Grand Final in Pontevedra, Spain on September 26 and 27, the WTCS standings will be based on five race results plus the final. If the rescheduled race doesn’t happen before Pontevedra, the series will be based on the results of four races plus the final.

Other Middle East Events

Challenge has one event in the region, Challenge Sir Bani Yas, which took place at the end of January. (Slowtwitch was on hand to cover that event.) That same weekend Challenge Israman also took place in Eilat, Isreal.

Both IRONMAN and the Professional Triathletes Organisation (PTO) have developed strong relationships in the Middle East over the last few years. “Experience Oman” is the title sponsor of the IRONMAN Pro Series, and IRONMAN hosted the first of three events in Oman last month in Muscat. There are two more races slated for this year – the full-distance race in Muscat on December 5, and IRONMAN 70.3 Dhofar on October 24.

The PTO announced last year that SURJ Sports Investment, the sports division of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, contributed roughly US$40 million to a Series C funding round for the organization. That money was targeted to help expand events in the Middle East and North Africa.

This year’s T100 Triathlon World Tour includes three events in the Middle East – Dubai T100 (women’s race) on November 14, a men’s race in Saudi Arabia also in November (the date hasn’t been finalized as of yet) and the Qatar T100 Final on December 11.

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T100 must be scrambling. Watching the IMNZ coverage and seeing all the Oman ads, at least IM has a much longer runway until they have to deal with this.

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Minimally IM has till Oct 24th this year for a regular 70.3 and Dec for 140.6 and it is all the way to 2029 before worlds go to Oman for 70.3. I suspect there will be a state of war in the region for the next 5 years, but within that state of war, normal civilian activities will resume . They always do, just because people even in war zones need to live life even with risk. It may be less visitors, but the people living there, get on with life. I should add that I HOPE my statement of a state of war for the next 5 years is dead wrong. War sucks all around which is why I left my military service literally 30 years ago in a few months. No point dying for someone elses’ idea.

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Obviously not the pros, but Multisport Worlds are also scheduled in Abu Dhabi in November. Right now I’m registered for my race, but I haven’t booked flights or accommodation. I’m struggling to know how to handle that; book with insurance, or just keep waiting. Everything feels so unpredictable.

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I guess you have to define what a state of war actually means. I mean specific countries have been in a “war” within it’s borders for decade long + within the “war on terrorism”. But now it’s grown to the whole region sorta dropping bombs on each other the past 10 days. I wouldn’t think the world could function properly if the middle east oil isn’t settled down fairly soon, let alone 5 years of this potential type of chaos.

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Probably US taxpayers will foot the bill for being a local policemen in the Gulf region for years now to keep the straights of Hormuz moving and Iran will keep applying pressure to block the flow of tankers thru there. And on the other side, someone will have to keep maritime flow past Bab El Mandeb as Saudi Aramco had expanded their East West pipeline to more use the Red Sea ports. Iran will just try to keep trouble up in the Persian gulf and GCC and thru their proxy’s make the choke point to Red Sea problematic. It’s not like 93 million Iranians will just buckle and not fight, so the fight will keep rolling now that its started in earnest. So we may not have the intensity of this week keeeping up for 5 years, but I just can’t see Iran throwing up an olive branch so that everyone can easily get on with life. So I think tourism, sports events (including triathlons) , etc etc all get re established while less bombs get launched. But let’s hope there is a fast cessation after this one week sprint of firing bombs, and it’s not a 5 year endurance event of endless munitions firing and destruction and people living in fear. I guess end of year T100 events are truly in jeopardy. I don’t think you can run a year long series where your championship/finale is in question

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Let’s hope history doesn’t repeat itself with how long this will last, but I’m not sure in and out would really be better either…. In either case, maybe St George will bail Ironman out again. Even if missiles aren’t firing in 2028, if there’s an active insurgency going on over there I can’t imagine many people would want to travel for a race in 2029