Most of the WTC/IMNA events are named after either a country or a state: IM Wisconsin, IM Florida, IM Canada, IM Germany, etc, etc. So why do we have IM Lake Placid and IM Coeur d’ Alene rather than IM NY and IM Idaho? And what’s with the ‘USA’ attached to those two races?
-Colin
Simple, IM NY makes you think of swimming in the Hudson. Not to mention if you called IM CDA, IM Idaho, you’d miss out on all the entrants that think its some sweet carribean island or french resort.
IM LP was originally known as IM USA as it was the second IM in the US. At the time it was Kona, IM Canada, IM NZ, IM Japan, IM Australia, etc. Once IMNA started adding races, they went to the state thing (California, Utah, Florida, etc.) As for CdA v. Idaho, well, who knows.
clm
As far as CdA being “Ironman USA Coeur d’Alene”, I recall reading (when the race was announced) that the local officials in CdA wanted “USA” in the name. They didn’t want “idaho” in the name, nor did they want “Coeur d’Alene” in the name to have to stand on its own.
Jeff
I thought it *was *IMCDA up until this year. I was under the impression that they only changed it to IMUSA because they turned it into the USA championship race.
A local up there told me the city specifically wanted CDA in the name for name recognition purposes. Makes sense considering tourism is big part of their local economy. While watching the local (Spokane) news the night before the race this year, they reported the race brought in $6-7M over the week so the impact is not insignificant.
Plus Coeur d’ Alene just plain sounds sexier than Idaho doesn’t it?!