Ironman teaching UTMB how to play dirty…
https://garyrobbinsrun.com/blog/2023/10/what-really-went-down-in-whistler
Local runners are PISSED and I agree with them.
Loads of people want to race a UTMB champ race, just like IMWC, but killing locally owned races kills the sport.
It will be interesting to see how it all plays out.
I’m on Gary/Coast Mountain side. Vail-Whistler being in it for the money should come as a surprise to no one.
yes been following this closely as Gary Robbins is a local legend here in BC and his races are amazing. This is all too familiar to us in the triathlon landscape. Watching this is definite PTSD as its all so predictable. BUT, i also think the outcome will be the same. the ULTRA scene will grow and UTMB will become the predominant event organizer. I think Gary will be fine, but overall he will the very small minority. Many will go way of REV3, Challenge NA, TriStar etc.
I don’t know anything about Gary Robins, but reading his post sounds like he took for granted he could just roll up and run his race and someone out maneuvered him and secured a location that he thought he had, without ever having a contract or investing in the relationships to make it happen.
Ultra runners want to run a well organized race in a great location. Will UTMB offer that?
The guy that couldn’t maintain the relationships or the contracts to continue holding an event is the one that should be trusted to carry on the sport? I’m suuuurrre the real hold up in his negotiations with a potential sale to Ironman was his volunteer support programs.
I don’t know anything about Gary Robins, but reading his post sounds like he took for granted he could just roll up and run his race and someone out maneuvered him and secured a location that he thought he had, without ever having a contract or investing in the relationships to make it happen.
Ultra runners want to run a well organized race in a great location. Will UTMB offer that?
The guy that couldn’t maintain the relationships or the contracts to continue holding an event is the one that should be trusted to carry on the sport? I’m suuuurrre the real hold up in his negotiations with a potential sale to Ironman was his volunteer support programs.
You conveniently ignore a bunch of facts here.
I don’t know anything about Gary Robins, but reading his post sounds like he took for granted he could just roll up and run his race and someone out maneuvered him and secured a location that he thought he had, without ever having a contract or investing in the relationships to make it happen.
Ultra runners want to run a well organized race in a great location. Will UTMB offer that?
The guy that couldn’t maintain the relationships or the contracts to continue holding an event is the one that should be trusted to carry on the sport? I’m suuuurrre the real hold up in his negotiations with a potential sale to Ironman was his volunteer support programs.
Gotta say, this is not a take I saw coming after reading this. Props for the major zag.
I don’t know anything about Gary Robins, but reading his post sounds like he took for granted he could just roll up and run his race and someone out maneuvered him and secured a location that he thought he had, without ever having a contract or investing in the relationships to make it happen.
Ultra runners want to run a well organized race in a great location. Will UTMB offer that?
The guy that couldn’t maintain the relationships or the contracts to continue holding an event is the one that should be trusted to carry on the sport? I’m suuuurrre the real hold up in his negotiations with a potential sale to Ironman was his volunteer support programs.
100% believe it was among other things.
Ironman has proved they are pretty slimy when it comes to buying up races or just moving in and forcing the little guy out. So for me, this isn’t too much of a stretch to believe him 100%
yes been following this closely as Gary Robbins is a local legend here in BC and his races are amazing. This is all too familiar to us in the triathlon landscape. Watching this is definite PTSD as its all so predictable. BUT, i also think the outcome will be the same. the ULTRA scene will grow and UTMB will become the predominant event organizer. I think Gary will be fine, but overall he will the very small minority. Many will go way of REV3, Challenge NA, TriStar etc.
Laz had better pay attention or one year soon he will go to permit for the Barkley Marathons and find out that UTMB/IM have already signed exclusive agreement with Frozen Head State Park for the Markley Marathons for his same weekend.
yes been following this closely as Gary Robbins is a local legend here in BC and his races are amazing. This is all too familiar to us in the triathlon landscape. Watching this is definite PTSD as its all so predictable. BUT, i also think the outcome will be the same. the ULTRA scene will grow and UTMB will become the predominant event organizer. I think Gary will be fine, but overall he will the very small minority. Many will go way of REV3, Challenge NA, TriStar etc.
Laz had better pay attention or one year soon he will go to permit for the Barkley Marathons and find out that UTMB/IM have already signed exclusive agreement with Frozen Head State Park for the Markley Marathons for his same weekend.
Can’t think of a better way for the Ultra/Trail Running world to start a boycott of UTMB/IM. That’s a person I’d bet they are way too scared to fuck with.
This tale sounds quite familiar to the those of us in the ultra community in Australia.
The Coast to Kosciuszko Ultramarathon is an independently organised event established in 2004. Each year in December, runners have assembled on the damp sand of the beach at Twofold Bay, waiting for the sun to rise over the ocean behind them. They have 46 hours to run to the 240km to the summit of Australia’s highest peak, Mount Kosciuszko, before descending to the Charlotte Pass finishline.
Due to the point-to-point design of the course taking in public roads, C2K is restricted to a limited number of runners, although it has always been held in high regard by the ultra community. For the race’s continued viability, it not only needs to attract runners, but each runner requires a support crew and the organiser needs to the support of a team of volunteers. Both crews and race volunteers are largely drawn from those within the ultra community.
Last year Ironman launched Ultra-Trail Kosciuszko, featuring a 100 mile, 100km, 50km and 27km events. It’s a major event, with the racing spread over 3 days with relatively few limitations on competitor numbers. The 100 mile and 100km promote the summit of Mount Kosciuszko as the selling point, although the races start and finish in a nearby ski resort, as opposed to C2K’s epic journey from the ocean to highest peak on the continent.
As with C2K, most of the UT-Kosci 100 mile competitors require a travel day before and after the event, committing to 4 or 5 days away from home.
With only 3 days between the end of C2K and the start of Ironman’s event, the latter is a real threat to C2K’s ability to attract runners, support crews and race volunteers.
as per most things it comes down to money…follow the money. i think Gary does a fantastic job and has built an excellent series of events. However with Whistler pricing their single day lift passes at $299 this season that should tell you all you need to know…
Vail Whistler is a business and the fact that they would prefer a more richer international crowd to come to their resort and restaurants etc to run a trial race on their land seems obvious to me over a local guy who attracts people in the region to come, however great of a person and however much he loves the sport.
utmb ironman was likely to show a better return on investment for their clientele than Gary.
Utmb sent out an email yesterday to runners all over the world announcing the race. I got it and thought wow that sounds like a cool place to go race. I didn’t even know about Gary or his race until this controversy.
It sucks for Gary, and local racing. No one likes to lose a business deal so I get his anger when he says he “is shaking right now †in his blog post.
I think this was bound to happen. Whistler is none of vails premiere locations. They easily make more money from utmb ironman than Gary and WAM.
There’s a great book called UTMB the race that changed trail running. I listened to a podcast with the author on a long run a few months back. It goes through the history of utmb and how it got to be the top of the food chain and how it was basically forced to partner with ironman to survive. It’s a family run business believe it or not but it does seem the ironman partnership has made it more corporate. Money talks.
utmb ironman was likely to show a better return on investment for their clientele than Gary.
So out of 52 weekends in 2024, UTMB just had to pick that same weekend as his race? Yeah, okay. It’s just more of the same shit they’ve pulled in the past for independent long course triathlon.
My reading of the tea leaves, including Gary’s post, suggests this has more to do with Vail/WB than IM/UTMB in terms of how this shook out. I have a sneaking suspicion that it was the mountain who offered up Gary’s date, rather than the other way around, but I could also be wrong.
Regardless…trail running’s going to go through the same exercise that triathlon and gravel have had. And in an environment where athletes demand more, permitting authorities demand more, etc. – the only people who might be able to weather that storm are your largest event production companies.
Might have been a condition of the deal. I don’t know the climate up there but I’ll bet it’s the best weather weekend for a race. Whistler does all kinds of events throughout the year so I would estimate not every weekend is open in the first place.
Plus if you’re the only race all year it gives you a better chance to sell out.
My main point in this and my previous post, is that everything being attributed to malice likely has a good business reason behind it and Vail and utmb and businesses first.
But unless you have no clue of what’s going on in the running world or the area, wouldn’t you say hey, we know there’s this other race going on, what’s up with that? It does not pass the smell test for me, as someone who has seen it happen time, and time again.
But unless you have no clue of what’s going on in the running world or the area, wouldn’t you say hey, we know there’s this other race going on, what’s up with that? It does not pass the smell test for me, as someone who has seen it happen time, and time again.
But there wasn’t. WAM had permanently canceled their race back in Feb
But unless you have no clue of what’s going on in the running world or the area, wouldn’t you say hey, we know there’s this other race going on, what’s up with that? It does not pass the smell test for me, as someone who has seen it happen time, and time again.
But there wasn’t. WAM had permanently canceled their race back in Feb
https://www.piquenewsmagazine.com/...ly-cancelled-6526867
If you read Gary’s blog post, you’ll see why they canceled. It was not by choice. Whistler played hardball with them and put up a lot of new barriers. Most likely, behind the scenes, they knew they were working on a deal with UTMB so they did all they could to make it difficult on Gary to obtain his permit.
On top of all this, Whistler permitted the Everesting folks to go ahead with their race. Correct me if I’m wrong but weren’t the Everesting races (running, at least) started by Jesse Izter (who’s wife is super rich because of her company). To me, this would suggest that Whistler paid favoritism towards another rich entity/member of society to put a race on their schedule
But unless you have no clue of what’s going on in the running world or the area, wouldn’t you say hey, we know there’s this other race going on, what’s up with that? It does not pass the smell test for me, as someone who has seen it happen time, and time again.
But there wasn’t. WAM had permanently canceled their race back in Feb
https://www.piquenewsmagazine.com/...ly-cancelled-6526867
If you read Gary’s blog post, you’ll see why they canceled. It was not by choice. Whistler played hardball with them and put up a lot of new barriers. Most likely, behind the scenes, they knew they were working on a deal with UTMB so they did all they could to make it difficult on Gary to obtain his permit.
On top of all this, Whistler permitted the Everesting folks to go ahead with their race. Correct me if I’m wrong but weren’t the Everesting races (running, at least) started by Jesse Izter (who’s wife is super rich because of her company). To me, this would suggest that Whistler paid favoritism towards another rich entity/member of society to put a race on their schedule
I agree with you about Whistler working on a deal and freezing him out.
And yes, Jesse Itzer and his running partner started 29029. It kind of rolled out from a coaching group that he used to do and the retreat that went with that in 2014/15 or thereabouts - I don’t remember exactly. I was supposed to go, but I ended up not going. He has expanded his empire a lot since then. And his wife Sara Blakely started Spanx, but sold it for a shit load of money.
Trail Runner story on this.