thaks for your repyl
but i think if we want more people trying to do that with lifestyle races that are more aimed for the rich 40s ( ie swim run entrance fees are quite expansive ) might not be the best way if we want to get more people involved for this demography triathlon caters quite well.
would we not be better of to promote the 750 swim and 5 k run aquathon that are really affordable ?
when i mean fluff i did not mean the contend I meant in the old lead page i saw pretty much every posted article within a few seconds a very small pic with a headline . Now its big pitcures and not as clear anymore to see everything in one go ( at least for myself)
overall to me that seems more emphasis on gear and less on the sport.
your post deserves an answer.
i competed in the first ironman in kona, in 1981. that was 35 years ago. i formally entered the industry 30 years ago this autumn. i entered my first 3-sport event in 1978 and my first swim/bike/run in 1980. so i think it’s fair to say i’ve seen substantially the entire arc of the sport, as regards participation, media and industry.
not widely appreciated is that we (triathlon in north america) hit a high point in 1988. in 1994 our sport had fallen to half of what it was in 1988. by 1999 we were about back to where we were in 1988. between 1998 and 2012 we saw 14 years of almost uninterrupted growth, and that 2012 total in the united states was several times the size of the market of users at the point of the previous high, in 1988.
since 2012 we’ve seen a drop-off in the united states and in canada, steadily, each year. the big drop-off is in youth and in 1-day memberships, which means the deeply committed triathletes remain, but those dating the sport, and those who might come in as youngsters, we’re suffering.
we’re not doing a good job of attracting newcomers.
why? in my view, because our sport is now dominated by professionals and corporations and moneyed interests. for upwards of the last decade the operative interest in everything having to do with triathlon - race production, manufacturing, media, governance - has been money, bonuses, careers, and return on invested dollar.
that first swim, bike run race in did, in 1980, the swim took place at the end. i was in 3rd. i came out of the water and got outsprinted in the beach, and i ended up 4th. the guy who outsprinted me, that corksucker, is “monty” on this forum. if you wander over to the your perfect race thread, you’ll see that monty and i are almost exasperatingly pleading that you all think outside the box when coming up with your perfect race. the most recent additions to that thread are brilliant. exactly what i hoped for. this kind of thinking is what our sport needs. first you think it. then you do it. then you reproduce it for others.
but if you keep doing what you’re doing, you’ll keep getting what you’re getting. if our sport simply follows the money, and if we follow those who follow the money, we have no one to blame but ourselves if our sport doesn’t begin to grow again, as it began to grow again in the late 1990s.
accordingly, i am not going to omit coverage of the traditional races. but when you say, “slowtwich should try to balance it a bit better,” in my view that’s exactly what we are doing. for every race dominated by traditional, mainstream interests we’re going to write about a race that some guy thought up, drew up on a napkin in a coffee shop with his buddy, and put on for no reason other than it sounded like a really cool race.
i’ve never done, seen in person, or gotten a cent from a swim/run race. but i dig the videos. the reason norseman and otillo are important is not that they line my pockets. it’s because these races line no one’s pockets! including the organizers’ pockets. this is the ethic and the operating principle that built our sport.
the very first thing i did when i came back from the first ironman in kona in february of 1981 is plan and produce a triathlon in my hometown, which happened in august of 1981. the very last thing i had on my mind was a profit. in fact, it was a privilege to lose money on those early races, and losing money was the cost i gladly bore for the thrill of reproducing for my fellows a multisport experience.
as to what we’ll cover here, i’m going to honor those who honor my idea of what has historically pushed this sport forward. that means the little race, the no-money race, the new product, the 1-man manufacturing company, the idea so good i wish i’d thought of it. these are going to get just as much interest from me as a new bike from a $1 billion company or a big race produced by ironman or IMG.
as regards the current races this weekend, yes of course we will cover 70.3 worlds. but rightly or wrongly - and maybe it was a poor choice on my part - when i was presented with the choice of whether to have timothy carlson spend his time on a forecast of this race or a woman with gran mal seizure epilepsy holding off liz lyles for the win at penticton, that just wasn’t even a close call. could we do both stories, you might ask. perhaps. but i’d already worked timothy to the bone on covering the olympics, alongside the other stories he covered, and my pick was jen annett.
now, you might call some of our stories fluff. they’re all interesting to me. i found herbert’s before/after photo essay a brave try. was it a success? that story has 4,400 facebook likes and rising. so, one man’s fluff is another man’s compelling read.
i promise you - i promise you - i’ll make editorial mistakes in judgment. and i want you to point them out. but the above is my answer to your question of where slowtwitch is going, and what you can expect going forward.
