A friend and I were just debating on races that have a main event but then one or two (maybe even more) races within its main event (ie - Local half will also have a sprint and olympic at the same time. Possibly different waves though).
I feel that this takes away from the luster of the main event. Prizes for the main event are thin as promoters are covering the one/two other races as well. The finish line isnt as thrilling due to the slew of finishers coming across all morning long. “Where is the winner of race x?”
On the other hand, having multiple races covers the need of all triathlete levels. “Cant do the half? Come do our sprint/oly.”
My impression is that most “Big” races are it. Nothing else.
this was a hot topic for me in running. i ran a marathon (the flying pig) that had all of the following in one event:
-marathon
-half marathon
-walking marathon
-walking half marathon
-half marathon relay
-full marathon relay
-5K
-half marathon relay walk
-full marathon relay walk
frankly, I found it absurd, overdone, and a major turn off. in running, events like this I definitely don’t like it–especially when you have about 20,000 participants.
as for triathlon, the sprint and international, plus du events don’t seem to bother me. but I keep to the regional races that aren’t thousands and thousands in numbers. it just suits me better. everyone has their own likes/dislikes. i can tell you though I’ll never run the flying pig again, that’s for sure. if I was to do a 20,000 person event i would like it better to all be just one or two events–say a full marathon, or a full and a half marathon together and that’s it.
At any tri I’ve done there are multi races going on, including duathlons. This is a participation sport. It’s not particularly exciting to watch compared to a lot of other sports. I think it’s just another cool thing about tri that the organizers are trying to please everybody.
I have no problem with having multiple races with the same finish line. I started triathlons with a sprint on my mountain bike and seeing all of those people flying along on aerobars and fantastic bikes made me want to do more. I have since done more than fifteen triathlons and I am continuously attemping to do more. First half marathon only 24 days away!
To get back to the original point, although it may be a pain to those in the upper eschelon, the sub events will create the next generation of athletes.
Main event - I guess this is subjective and in my shallow world means the longer of the distances.
My point is, wouldnt it benefit the race director to say “This is the race of the day” instead of spreading iteself thin. Does the quality of an event decrease with more races being offered. I was at CA Man and I think they did a great job of hyping up both races. But this is not always the case.
I first started noticing this about 10 years ago in both running and triathlon. Prior to that there had just been the main event at running races and triathlons - the John Brown 10K, or the Pleasentville Olympic Distance Triathlon, or whatever. Now, it’s not uncommon to see 3 or more sub events typically of shorter distance on the marquee with the main event. I often wonder why that is? One could conclude with the huge increase in participation that having all these “extra” events has helped participation, but I wonder about that. I think that there are bigger issues driving participation.
Last year, I did a Half-Ironman in Montreal where all on the same day they had an IM, Half-IM, National Elite Champs (OD draft-legal), Amateur Olympic Distance, sprint distance. The course also featured a 4km bike loop on the auto-racing track, swim in the rowing basin from the 76 olympics and 5km run loop around the basin.
This was the best organized event I’ve been to and everyone else seemed to agree to. www.esprittriathlon.com
A race director declaring one race as the “race of the day” would make you feel better? I could have my wife call me “emperor of the universe” and it wouldn’t make it so.
Most of the races that I have done that contain sub-events have mostly different courses and are usually timed so they finish at different intervals. Besides this, the numbering system is generally orchestrated to point out exactly who is in what.
I guess after all this, I’m not seeing your point other than wanting singular events.
My logic:
More Events = More People = Closed Course = Better Organization = Better Schwag = Better Aid Stations…
It wasn’t a problem at all for the half-IM race but I’m not sure about later on. Basically the races were spread out something like:
6:30 - IM start
7:00 - Half IM start
10:30 - Olympic Start
12:00 - Sprint Start
3:00 - Elite Start
So basically, the half guys were off the bike course before the Olympic or sprint started. Also, they had two or three marshalls on motorcycles riding around the course enforcing drafting rules. So, you would usually see a marshall every km or 2. This really seemed to eliminate the drafting. Also of note is that since it’s on a closed circuit, you have the entire width of road, not just one side. This really helped because there was always plenty of room to pass (it was probably equivalent to three lanes wide on a normal road).