I’m guessing they’re gone and ain’t comin’ back, but I was wondering if anyone else had heard anything. My sense is that they misjudged the American/Canadian market and saw this as a losing proposition.
Has anybody heard anything?
I have not heard anything, but looking at the results from Powerman Florida last month there were only 92 finishers across all three events. As a triathlete who participates in duathlon, I have to admit that duathlon is a unwanted, ugly stepchild of triathlon – in North America. And since triathlon is struggling right now, it shouldn’t be surprising that duathlon must be imploding – in North America.
This is too bad, at least for now. I know duathlon is not much of a thing in North America, but my sense is that it could be much more than it currently is. Powerman simply misjudged the market here and paid for it with low registration numbers. The races in Europe and Asia are known to be very well organized, but I thought their host cities in the US were somewhat odd selections. And I just did not get why they thought people would travel thousands of miles and compete in two races just to qualify for for Zofingen, which anyone can enter in the first place. And then they blamed USAT. It just did not make sense.
I’m hoping another company figures out a way to get this done.
Duathlon definitely still has potential, since there are plenty of people who are not comfortable with swimming. Whether that can be capitalized upon or not remains to be seen. I’m a little bummed about Powerman; I was hoping 3D would run Powerman WV again this year, since I’m close and finally getting back into racing dus after a long hiatus.
This is too bad, at least for now. I know duathlon is not much of a thing in North America, but my sense is that it could be much more than it currently is. Powerman simply misjudged the market here and paid for it with low registration numbers. The races in Europe and Asia are known to be very well organized, but I thought their host cities in the US were somewhat odd selections. And I just did not get why they thought people would travel thousands of miles and compete in two races just to qualify for for Zofingen, which anyone can enter in the first place. And then they blamed USAT. It just did not make sense.
I’m hoping another company figures out a way to get this done.
Years ago when I first learned about Zofingen, I was under the impression that the only way in was by qualifying at another Powerman race. I eventually ended up going via USAT Du Nats on Team USA and saw that there was indeed an open division with no qualifying requirements whatsoever. The very statement about awarding qualifying spots at NA Powerman races is false advertising, plain and simple. While Powerman Zofingen was extremely well organized, the organization is simply inept when it comes to marketing.
I believe there are a number of factors as to why Powerman style races flounder here in the US.
First of all I think the cities where they were held are a bit suspect. I would have maybe tried in places that are more open to different endurance sports than just triathlon, say maybe San Francisco, Austin, Boulder?
Also in my ever so humble opinion long course Du isn’t going to fly here due to there being an abundance of long course triathlons be they half or full iron distance so athletes looking for such a challenge will gravitate towards tri.
I see the future of duathlon here in the US being sprint distance, doable by the average 5k runner, type events. Say 2/12/2 format give or take.
And of course then we have the massive marketing that has been done for IM Hawaii and the perceived life altering, pinnacle of endurance sport image it has thanks to the media.
If I were wealthy I would love to do a similar type of tv program for Powerman Zofingen complete with all the nauseating special interest stories etc…for a few years and see what that would do to the participation numbers.
I give great credit to the powerman organization for everything they are doing elsewhere on the globe to great success. The European races for the most part are well attended and those in other parts have skyrocketed.
I agree with much of what everyone is saying about Powerman and the potential market for these races. Powerman really misjudged things, but a company with a better plan could pull this off in the coming years.
I’ve only been at this duathlon stuff for a year, but my sense is that its market is partly the multi-sport crowd and partly the running and biking community. I just think duathlon could work to pull more runners and cyclists into multi-sport. If I had known about it before, I never would have bought goggles or a wetsuit.
The US is becoming more wussified by the day. Duathlon is sadly almost dead. Long live the color run and mud 5Ks. Now that’s epic;)
It looks like 3D is going to put on the Michigan race again (renamed DU Frankemuth – http://3disciplines.com/event/?x=30&y=1). I wonder if this a trial balloon for doing the other races too, just under their own branding.
I was pulling for them, even had several of my athletes racing in them and was sending some of my pro’s to race in them now but as often as they went off they didn’t.
They had a terrible marketing plan, weren’t willing to invest the $ needed to grow the brand, tried to expand to too many venues vs solidifying a few venues making those races as great as possible then expand, cancelled too many races at the last minute, blamed everyone but themselves for the cx’s, waited too long to start a marketing plan, did little to no social media promo just to name a few reasons why it unfortunately failed.
Now it’s true that USAT cares about duathlon only a tiny bit more than they care about age group drug use and that probably didn’t help the series flourish but the main thing is the RD’s were their own worst enemies when it came to Powerman.
With Powerman Florida gone, I believe the Chilly Willy Duathlon at Fort Desoto (Jan 29, 2017) is the ONLY stand alone road duathlon left in the state; and despite it attracting several hundred athletes every year, the RD dropped USAT sanctioning several years back. All the rest are side affairs in conjunction with an existing triathlon and a couple of offroad events. To set up a duathlon schedule you pretty much have to be resigned to playing second fiddle at triathlon. Duathlons are great training for triathlon; but it is pretty much a dead letter at this point.
3 Disciplines is back to listing races in Michigan and Florida as Powerman Michigan and Powerman Florida.
A glimmer of hope!
A glimmer of hope!
Both races have a super sprint too (2.5k, 20k, 2.5k), which I think is smart. It’s short enough to perhaps get some folks to try it out.
Powerman North America made poor decisions on the venue AND date selection of their races. Many sites weren’t all that easy to get to or desirable destinations. And, many of the dates conflicted directly with USAT’s duathlon national championship races or USAT’s Duathlon Race Series’ races (either the same weekend or adjacent weekend). I did the inaugural Powerman Florida race in December 2014 and was hopeful for what the RD was projecting for Powerman N.A.'s future. In 2015, I was about to register and purchase a plane ticket for Powerman Washington (Stanwood, Washington) when I got the word to hold off because the rumor was that it was going to be cancelled. 3 weeks before the April date, it was. Then, Powerman Wisconsin (Kenosha, WI) came onto my radar but it was scheduled the day after USAT’s DU Nats in St. Paul in June. Why Powerman N.A. would select a venue so close to DU Nats on the same weekend boggled my mind. It eventually got cancelled (I can’t recall how far of an advanced warning was given). From then on, I had zero confidence in Powerman N.A.'s line-up of races and like someone mentioned posted above, Powerman N.A. was/is NOT the exclusive way to qualify for Powerman Zofingen even though that’s what they led you to believe.
Now, I just wish that USAT’s “long-course” duathlon national championship race had distances a bit longer than 5M-31.5M-5M. It’d be nice if they’d stretch it to 10K-80K-10K
I just received this today and must have been one of the few people to register for their Florida event which was scheduled two weeks out:
***We hope you all had a Happy and Healthy Thanksgiving. ***
***We at Powerman North America regretfully had to make the difficult decision to cancel this year’s Powerman Florida event on 12/10. Please believe us we are not in the business for permitting, planning and promoting an event all to cancel a few weeks out. We have been in the business for almost 20 years, hosting over 1100 events and have cancelled less than 10 times due to low numbers. It is evident this event is not wanted or supported in that area. On a positive note, our other Powerman events already have as many registered for them as Florida today. So we look forward to continue our quest in growing and promoting the sport of duathlon and the Powerman brand in those other markets. ***
YOU WILL BE RECEIVING A FULL REFUND FOR YOUR POWERMAN FLORIDA REGISTRATION. In ADDITION to you will be receiving a coupon to register for one of the other Powerman Events scheduled.
***February 17, 2018 - Powerman Arizona ***
May 6, 2018 - Powerman Michigan (Team USA Qualifier)
October 6/7, 2018 - Powerman Colorado
March 23/24, 2019 - Powerman Hawaii
Again, we apologize for any inconvenience this causes you and any disruption in your training/racing plan. Believe us, we get it. We are athletes too and our first duathlon participating was 1987. We appreciate your support you gave Powerman Florida and we sincerely hope to see you at one of the upcoming Powerman events.
We wish you and your’s a Happy Holiday!?
–
Anyone Can Do the DU!
Powerman North America
www.powermannorthamerica.org
Po Box 829
Grand Blanc, MI 48480
Fortunately I was planning to drive and won’t get hit cancelling any airline tickets. Why would anyone have enough confidence in them to make plans to travel and train for their 2018 events? Like others have said above, I really wish they could reestablish the series and make it successful, but there is no way one can take them seriously at this point. I wasn’t even shocked to receive the cancellation for Florida, particularly since I had not seen any promotion at all of this event or any others this year. Even the USAT race calendar still had their sanctioning as pending and on top of that it looks like their Michigan event had less than 90 participants total for 3 distances in September.