And that is an enormous catch 22.
The races are too expensive to host so only large cities with big local authority investments can afford them. The authorities want their cities show cased and the courses are boring with results all too predictable. Which makes them less attractive to new venues.
The way sport is heading, I’d be surprised in a few years if at least half the races aren’t in the rich arab states!
At the same time karolivary is a rather surprising and great addition for 2025.
The UK could hold a world cup to play it’s part ,at least a little bit
Sometimes I wonder why does ITU not say if you don’t organise ITU races being a certain fed size you have to pay into a race fund .
I am pretty sure that Brit Tri isn’t allowed to use its funding like that. Perhaps someone more knowledgable can chip in but London happened because they had to have a race in 2011 before the Olympics, proved successful and stayed there for a few years. Then Leeds happened because of the Brownlee’s.
Birmingham hosted the Commenwealth Games and almost went bankrupt so I doubt any local authority can afford to host a race in the current economic environment. Especially as ITU wants an alleged 1 million for the honour and a guarantee of circa 250k prize fund.
I wonder, then, how Karlovy Vary (pop: 50k) can afford to? Where’s that funding coming from?
Im almost certain, the race went to Leeds temporarily while they did something to Hyde Park for a year, Leeds was a huge success so it stayed there.
Its possible I’ve made this whole story up in my head though.
It could be an world cup or even etu cup and an etu cup does not cost much
I do think people are very very prone to believing in numbers that someone tossed on the internet somewhere.
It’s like the universally acknowledged “fact” that Ironman lost money on IM WC Nice because some guy on a podcast said he’d talked to some guy at Ironman. So many have repeated it that it now feels like confirmed by 10 sources, whereas it’s just hearsay by one guy.
Or you could do a 2 min Google search …
To get an idea
So that says 720k plus hotels and meals for 180 people plus full transportation from airports to race venue.
Didn’t realise it also has to be for multiple years so that is an enormous commitment.
Caught me! But also caught @SheridanTris overstating the amount by 100% (if you allocate 3 sponsor spaces to World Tri and do not do a Mixed Relay - and only Hamburg and Abu Dhabi host those, the total is $600k, including a $30k provision for transport costs).
The average $280k in TV production costs can conceivably be much lower in Europe than in a place like the UAE, as well, and they can instead “cover the TV production according to the World Triathlon requirement as a VIK service by securing the local TV rights”.
So… I do think people are very very prone to believing in numbers that someone tossed on the internet somewhere.
I appreciate off topic, but think it is/was @Bryancd who shared this ‘fact’ in his what do people think about going back to Kona (do not comment unless you think the answer is yes’) thread. Maybe someone else.
And of course what does "lost money on the women’s IMWC at Nice’ actually mean?
The financial requirements to host World Tri races are more transparent.
I heard the “Nice loss” theory on ProTriNews (the same podcast that, however entertaining it is during my long runs, spread a rumor that Hamburg would not host WTCS in 2025 - to soften the offtopic here a bit).
I would also assume that karolovary does not pay the full price but it certainly does cost massive amount more than a European cup race at the same time I would assume the city has a good idea what clientel visites the spas over the year.
And of course I do also agree that it’s not so easy to say the nice race lost money if nice pays a good bit of the TV costs. And price money.
Or people say this athletes defo make more money doing one series etc
As Sam ranouf alluded London pays of curse a lot less to host a race than Dubai .
There is never a one system fits all.
But fact is it’s not like ITU has big queues to hold their races apart from Poland where it’s seems like an official personally profits from getting the races to Poland lol
It is there in the policy! And you are conveniently missing the 180 people in a hotel for at least 4 nights including meals. Then the extra 2 nights for the technical officials.
Put on your little blinkers and deny it but that is the reason there are so few new submissions. When was the last time that any race gave up 3 sponsors to ITU? I can’t remember 1 but am willing for someone to correct me.
The pigs have their snouts in the trough and car park boring courses are here to stay unless something changes.
I think this is going to sorta turn into a “perfect storm” against WT. The schedule this year is a disaster and then the post olympic year where the “stars” potentially pass more often then race WTCS. It’s going to be a rough year.
I still am scratching my head at why the sport doesn’t just move to sprint or super (heat-finals) + MTR as their olympic format and that’s what they use for their wtcs events. WT already asked to add events and got denied, that usually means that’s the direction they want to go usually. I feel like the MTR is such a B rated event for WT until oh hey there it is in the Olympics, now we “care”.
You would want them to use sprint as standard Olympic distance?
Just off the top of my head, we used to get Madrid, Budapest, London, Sydney, Stockholm.
I dont think big/capital cities should have a monopoly on sporting events, but this is still a developing sport and putting the biggest races on in obscure cities a lot of people haven’t even heard of to raise a bit more extra cash can’t be good for the development or image of the sport.
Seems to be regressing.
Not sure by what you mean by “it”. Policy + math = about $600k. And accommodation for 180 people is not in the policy, only a bus from the airport. I did read it.
(For the record, I do think it’s a lot of money, and I have noticed there aren’t any takers in the UK, and that the courses save for Weihai and Karlovy Vary are boring AF. But somehow they did add Karlovy!)
Yes, seeing/hearing the tea leaves, it only makes sense that it’s eventually going to get there. But this “rumor” has also been around since I started in itu in 2010. But hearing that WT asked for added events to the IOC (and got rejected) basically means, that’s “eventually” where they want things to go (usually).
What it would actually do imo is create a more firm line in the sand for athletes. If the sport eventually does go to sprint or super sprint, then eventually you’ll do that until your not good enough and then go to middle course and/or long course. You’ll very unlikely be able to race well across all those different race distances just on simple demands of competition.
To me atleast the sprint solves “bike boredom” in that it’s only going to be 25 mins instead of 50 mins, and it may even give more chances for breaks, and even more so in super sprint racing imo. So even if they race on shitty boring courses, you have a easier way to keep “excitement” up, instead of racing the final 4 of 6 laps all hand holding essentially more times than not.
If they wouldn’t have asked to add more events, I wouldn’t have thought it was as omnipresent about the idea. But seeing as they asked, that’s usually a sign of “ok this is how we have to get what we want in the olympics”.