This is HUGELY disappointing.
1 Like
Dibs on the Big Monument 
Sucks. I love this race and wanted to do it in 26
Sounds like the County/Town didn’t want it anymore. The town always seemed pretty stoked to have the race there but the county didn’t want to pay up.
St George is an incredible venue for triathlon. It is too bad. On the brightside, perhaps this will allow Wildflower to re establish itself. As a legit triathlon destination again. Unless of course Ironman is dumping St George for Wildflower. That becomes a whole different discussion.
2 Likes
IM fought for the race but the County said no. Be interesting to see what the local reaction is, they may be pissed.
What was the county’s reason to be against it?
They didn’t want to pay the cost of the event, that’s all that was relayed to me when I asked. Apparently they are very surprised as well this has happened at IM.
So moving the IMWC to St George is out.
1 Like
you mean from Kona?
Absolutely gutted. I was registered for 2025 and just last week transfered out of it. Totally expecting and planning on 2026…
Really wanted to do that iconic course.
1 Like
Glad I signed up for one last time on a whim. I’ve raced that course so many times and always have some kind of mechanical or other issue that ends up not having my best day on the bike.
Regarding the cancelation, I seem to remember the PGA ladies tour coming to STG? It might be that the county is cutting back on the budget to pay for that event.
It could also be the city will step up and focus on it’s own race options. Unless they are cutting those back too? The city actually has a pretty robust selection of races it at least appears to run and have ownership of:
https://sgcityutah.gov/activity/special_events/st._george_races/index.php
I think Ironman’s contract terms are pretty heavy handed, especially if you take a city which already appears to be in the event business.
1 Like
Bring back red hills parkway for the run this last time
4 Likes
So after reaching out, my source says low registration numbers mixed with the sprawling bike course has the county questioning the resources put into it.
If we were looking at nearly 3000 racers, I’m guess it would be a different story, but if they’re only pulling 1200 or so, I can see why someone is asking why so many miles of road is being shut down.
I think the real problem we have as a sport and industry is there is an increasingly vocal and angry populist NIMBYism that seeks to lay fault for all problems from political pork spending to housing and food prices on any target that is ripe for criticism.
The STG Ironman was one of those things that actually appeared from the outside to work very well. The disruption to the community was not so severe that no one could get to work, etc without just a few extra minutes of a detour or waiting.
But all that being said, how many people come into the area as a result of the race? 6000? There are 6 million people that drive through there to get to Zion every year.
What so many of these communities don’t fully realize is the positive impact from having these kinds of events on a community’s ethos.
I’m reminded of a conversation I had with someone from another town where the city wanted to stop running the pool and is to sell it off to a hotel or private owner because they “lost” money on it every year. Some of these important public services and events get lost in the fray of people pissed their tax dollars are being used on projects like gay & lesbian foreign films in German or something off the wall like that. So when they have the reigns of power, they come down heavy handed on more useful things.
1 Like
Ill let you rethink that last sentence and correct that one…
1 Like
1738 finishers last year so figure 1800+ registered isn’t 3000, I don’t think any 79.3 outside of Worlds gets close to that, but decent.
Wow. Just. Wow.
I couldn’t pick just one or two things from that. It’s all bad.
Really? Your response is, “the stg community just doesn’t understand how great IM is for it?”
And I don’t even know what to do with the last TWO sentences. Belongs in the LR or just the dumpster.
1 Like
there you go 3100 finishers so likely 3500 registered
1 Like
i dont think this is what he says . given that he says that saint gerorge has its own races they might want to promote more and that ironman is heavy handed with its contract demands.
Hmm… Ok. That was my interpretation of this paragraph…
If I’ve misinterpreted that… Ok, I’ll amend.
Pretty sure Oceanside fills up at 3k+ every year too, so imagine others are in that range.
And lets be clear about StG, it is completely an event city. they host all sorts of athletic events, I was just at one that had more athletes than the olympics(world senior games, 11k+ athletes)). They have an annual marathon and all sorts of other things. So my guess is that perhaps it is both things brought up here, not enough athletes for the price they are on the hook for.
And that is the thing about Ironman’s, they come into town and demand stuff. As they should too, but not at the expense of actually having the race. But at some point they lose money, so makes no sense to pick up bigger tabs to keep a venue unless there is a high likelihood that they will be well above the break even point.
And lets face it, I know a lot of you love that course, I love that area and it is perfect for long distance triathlon. But people in our sport are not as hardy as they would like you to believe, so Florida, Arizona, and Texas races are going to get most the attention because they are flat and usually short courses where fast times are a given. StG is an honest and hard course where fast times are not to be seen usually, and most folks just shy away from hard anymore…
4 Likes