the WTC There’s no such thing as the WTC anymore.
WTC or World Triathlon Corporation, used to be the Corporate name for IRONMAN a number of on ownership iterations ago! It’s a popular (?) myth that they changed the corporate name.
World Triathlon Corporation, located at 3407 W. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., Suite 100, Tampa, Florida 33607 (“WTC”, “we” or “our”) is the data controller. We control the processing of your personal data.
I agree, regardless of a race title. The general pro PTO races are going to be far more interesting than Nice with a handful of the strongest athletes. I don’t see how you recognize Nice as a World Champion Race when the top athletes are racing a different series.
Because in ten years when the PTO has long since lost its sugar daddy and folded up shop, their winner will be a footnote in the sport’s history, something equivalent to “Xxxx took first in the race the ill-fated PTO designated as its championship.” Meanwhile the winner at Nice will be listed in a line of champions that goes back decades.
Although, truth be told, the WTC has damaged its championship’s legacy by its move from Kona.
This is probably the best answer on this thread.
Essentially the Ironman Worlds and Ironman70.3 worlds have turned into a kind of “people’s championships” with triathletes all around the world, voting with their feet and wallets. Those who were around in the mid 80’s when Hawaii had zero prize money and the Nice Long Course Tri know how stacked the Nice field was compared to Kona and in Europe it WAS the people’s championship, while Kona was in the US. Once Kona started offering prize money, the pros went over and the rest is kind of history as Kona became the people’s championships.
Eventually Yves Cordier, who used to pretty well always lead Nice deep into the bike leg decided to start a full IM in Nice. Now Nice is alternating IM Worlds.
Where I am going with this, is everyone forgets who was winning at the old Nice “PRO” event. Literally no one cares anymore of the zillion wins Mark Allen had there, or when Simon Lessing raced Mark shoulder to shoulder to the last mile on the Promenade Des Anglais. We remember Mark and Dave Scott doing that in Kona.
So with T100 not YET having a sustainable biz model (surviving off venture capital and corporate investors is NOT a sustainable biz model when you need that for your operations), should T100 go out of biz, no one will remember who did what at T100.
As Ironman DOES have a sustainable biz model, it should survive in time even in a reduced form.
In terms of field, too bad Lucy won’t be there. I can understand her heart is in Kona. Haug weighs nothing and should have a massive advantage on this course. I would love to see Daniela take a dominant win like here IM Worlds in the spring of 2022. Can that Daniela show up?
It’s been said and I’ll said it again. The best appear to have chosen T100. Nice will be underwhelming and that’s a shame.
Who gets to decide it’s not a world championship? Certainly nobody on this forum. If an unlikely set of circumstances prevented Yee, Wilde, Blummenfelt and the French men lining up in Paris, would the winner not be the Olympic Champion?
Whoever puts in the effort to prepare for and win in Nice will rightfully be World Champion and should not have to put up with sniping about a weakened field.
Who gets to decide it is a world championship? Certainly not some private for-profit company.
As long as we don’t call the Moritz Events winner a World Champion I can get behind your stance. Otherwise, there is no other World Championship that draws this level of athletes in any other race in the world. Roth has great fields, but they don’t have the depth.
So who ever wins Olympics is not world champion, winner of iron brand event is? 🤣
. . . a Talking Tri podcast . . . surprised they didn’t make the race roster race “exclusively” PTO It isn’t clear if it is legal for the PTO to force exclusivity. There was a ruling in Europe that is being watched by cycling. While the ruling applied to football, it is believed ASO (Tour de France) could not prevent riders from participating in a new, competitor’s race. I wonder if this would apply here.
Even if it doesn’t, personally I think PTO is right not to block athletes to do Kona or Nice. However I do think IM should equally not force a validation for say top 5 WC athletes which was obviously an attempt to block athletes from doing PTO. The courtesy should be bi-directional.
Very much a personal opinion.Back in October, when we were expecting all this, I suggested that requiring exclusivity would be illegal and/or that if PTO tried that they would lose several of the top 15 who would not accept that as a T100 condition. I suggest PTO is keen not to lay itself open to accusations of deliberate antagonism.
With regard to validation, I am pleased it has been reintroduced. We saw what happened last year: no validation and they hopped off and raced Roth and several no other IMs before Nice/Kona. In addition letting Haug, LCB, Ryf, Philipp, Knibb and Sodaro (all racing PTO) off validation means they are at an advantage when designing their racing schedule compared with those who are not AQ: Matthews, True (Norden, Langridge, Lee and Moench have earned a Nice slot from Florida and Busselton). Afternote: Sodaro is leading 70.3 Tasmania at T2 so that’s one of the two 70.3s she needs to validate for Nice.
So who ever wins Olympics is not world champion, winner of iron brand event is? 🤣
Where did I say that? Last I checked the Olympic Champion races a draft legal 51.5k.
Two completely different disciplines.
This is like the difference between Rugby 7s and XVs. Or T20 Cricket and Test Cricket. Truly different events.
100k is also not long distance. It is middle. Well less than middle.
So who ever wins Olympics is not world championWhoever wins the Olympics is indeed not World Champion, unless they have already won that year’s WC or once they have, post Olympics.
**As long as we don’t call the Moritz Events winner a World Champion I can get behind your stance// **
I’m confused here, I had thought the ITU was going to sanction that race as a world championship, is that not right?? If so, the winner of course will be a world champion, along with a few others in different distances. And no doubt that race will probably have the best field of the year in terms of top talent, and depth of field. So it should be deserving of that designation, if I indeed did hear things right…
Please correct me if I misunderstood…
As long as we don’t call the Moritz Events winner a World Champion I can get behind your stance//I’m confused here, I had thought the ITU was going to sanction that race as a world championship, is that not right?? If so, the winner of course will be a world champion, along with a few others in different distances. And no doubt that race will probably have the best field of the year in terms of top talent, and depth of field. So it should be deserving of that designation, if I indeed did hear things right…
Please correct me if I misunderstood…The T100 Series winner will be . . . .
16 Aug 2023:"World Triathlon (ITU in @monty-speak) and the PTO announced today a new partnership that will recognise the PTO Tour as the official World Championship Tour of long distance triathlon, . . . 100km distance.
. . . the long distance equivalent of World Triathlon’s successful World Triathlon Championship Series,
- A points-based competition with Professional men’s and women’s World Championship titles awarded at the end of a season-long tour"
https://protriathletes.org/media-releases/world-triathlon-and-pto-join-forces/
I do not doubt that the T100 Grand Final will have the highest SOF of 2024 (aka "best field of the year), but a world championship will not be awarded on the result of that race but on the series as a whole.
It was the stated intent to designate one of the T100 races/venues as the AG WC for LD.
TaupÅ’s SOF will be very close behind.
World Triathlon also awards the standard course World Champion title to the winner of WTCS and aiui, the LD World Champion title will be awarded to the winner of the Townsville race (3/120/30km) on 25 August, again aiui.
Ironman is sanctioned by every federation and is a member of the ITU. So what is the point other than to just be negative against Ironman?
The difference is we’ll create an artificial distance and crown a 100k champion? I hope the money they’re paying the ITU is good.
Ironman is sanctioned by every federation and is a member of the ITU. The difference is we’ll create an artificial distance and crown a 100k champion? I hope the money they’re paying the ITU is good.Pretty sure than Ironman is NOT a member of World Triathlon (known as ITU till 2020).
https://www.triathlon.org/...titution_2024_v1.pdf
https://www.triathlon.org/development/federation
List of “artificial” distances (all km and SBR unless stated):
5.3-mile run, followed by a 5-mile cycle and a 600-yard swim
1.5/40/10
3/120/30
3.8/180/42
1.9/90/21
2/80/18
So who ever wins Olympics is not world championWhoever wins the Olympics is indeed not World Champion, unless they have already won that year’s WC or once they have, post Olympics.
so you mean the person who wins this is world champion? https://wtcs.triathlon.org/ ? cause sorry, the long course “WC” people usually fail to win WTCS championship. respect draft legal , its hard as hell.
As long as we don’t call the Moritz Events winner a World Champion I can get behind your stance. Otherwise, there is no other World Championship that draws this level of athletes in any other race in the world. Roth has great fields, but they don’t have the depth.
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Which events are “Moritz events”? Can you show us the website where there is such an entity called “Moritz Events” so we can see which events this entity you keep referring to actually host? What position in the PTO does Sir Michael hold that,outside of being one of the investors, directly affects the day to day running of their series?
What did Sir Michael Moritz do to you or anyone else in the triathlon world to foster such animosity.Your rabid obsession with continually denigrating this mans name at every opportunity has me fascinated.
and,just so you get all caught up.
World Triathlon and PTO launch the World Championship Tour Of Long Distance triathlon • World Triathlon
Michael Moritz is the owner of the PTO. He is not just an “investor”. Describing him as an investor doesn’t recognize him as the majority partner. Before him they were an angry collins cup twitter account. Without him they’re still that angry Twitter account.
Michael Moritz is the owner of the PTO. He is not just an “investor”. Describing him as an investor doesn’t recognize him as the majority partner. Before him they were an angry collins cup twitter account. Without him they’re still that angry Twitter account.
.
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You didn’t answer my questions and have also failed to recognize the other investors brought on in the second round of financing.
What executive position does he hold in the PTO and why do you have such animosity for Sir Michael Moritz specifically?
PTO Announces Series B Financing with Divergent Investments, Sir Michael Moritz & Warner Bros. Discovery | PTO (protriathletes.org)
Meanwhile the winner at Nice will be listed in a line of champions that goes back decades.
You’re correct, the name of the Triple A talent will still be listed as a World Champion even though they never raced the best talent because the best talent chose the PTO Series.
But that “investor” is going to allow what the broadcast to be available in 120 countries around the world. They are doing everything they can to put the best product forward, it may or may not work out; but won’t be able to blame lack of resources/trying.
But that “investor” is going to allow what the broadcast to be available in 120 countries around the world. They are doing everything they can to put the best product forward, it may or may not work out; but won’t be able to blame lack of resources/trying.
He’s spending a lot of money. Don’t think he’ll get an ROI at all. In fact I think he’s just making a bet, a bad one, but a bad one that he can write off…because he’s a billionaire that needs a writeoff.
So here’s something that kinda bugs me about your commentary. You seem to never be able to keep it down the middle. Like 100% he’s “spending money”, but why you can’t credit that the PTO is at min putting together a professional league for the next 2-3 years to give itself a chance, is beyond me. Like I do not think in a million years this is going to be long term successful. But I’m not going to then shit on them because imo they are pretty much doing everything they can to take the best product to market. Again the PTO “success” bar is so hard that it’s likely not going to make it because imo a 3+ hour triathlon race imo just isn’t going to push through an already very busy sports worldwide sports culture. But to the PTO’s credit- they are doing the steps necessary to put it itself in a position of success. So if this fails, it’s because the “general public” won’t buy in…not because they “penny pinched” or they lacked the funds to make it work…or they didn’t get talent to the races. And so imo that deserves a ton of credit and I don’t know that it’s just 1 billioniare doing this as a tax write off at this point and investment structure anymore. That was 2-3 years ago, not now.
ETA: It can end up a failure and that not necessarily mean it was a “negative” for the sport. Like shit on them for many things if you must, but atleast give them some credit for “going for it” and putting their best pro tri series forward with real investment and help for the pro’s. It may not make it long term (which is my guess/thoughts) but at least they have got the investment and capital an abiility to what broadcast into what 1/2 the countries in the world. So not every angle has to be shitted on them imo.
So here’s something that kinda bugs me about your commentary. You seem to never be able to keep it down the middle. Like 100% he’s “spending money”, but why you can’t credit that the PTO is at min putting together a professional league for the next 2-3 years to give itself a chance, is beyond me. Like I do not think in a million years this is going to be long term successful. But I’m not going to then shit on them because imo they are pretty much doing everything they can to take the best product to market. Again the PTO “success” bar is so hard that it’s likely not going to make it because imo a 3+ hour triathlon race imo just isn’t going to push through an already very busy sports worldwide sports culture. But to the PTO’s credit- they are doing the steps necessary to put it itself in a position of success. So if this fails, it’s because the “general public” won’t buy in…not because they “penny pinched” or they lacked the funds to make it work…or they didn’t get talent to the races. And so imo that deserves a ton of credit and I don’t know that it’s just 1 billioniare doing this as a tax write off at this point and investment structure anymore. That was 2-3 years ago, not now.
ETA: It can end up a failure and that not necessarily mean it was a “negative” for the sport. Like shit on them for many things if you must, but atleast give them some credit for “going for it” and putting their best pro tri series forward with real investment and help for the pro’s. It may not make it long term (which is my guess/thoughts) but at least they have got the investment and capital an abiility to what broadcast into what 1/2 the countries in the world. So not every angle has to be shitted on them imo.
Honestly, I’m a huge fan of triathlon. I watch tons of races. I post way too much on this forum My biggest issue with the PTO and why I may be unwilling to “credit” them is they continue to maintain this level of being an “athletes advocacy organization” which it is 100% not. Shed that completely and we’ll see where I land.
But also? My wife raced PTO USO Open Dallas. I’m very cynical as you can tell. I saw how much they spent there, and then I do the math. It just doesn’t make sense to me…because I work in this space. Where the start up organization I work in spends a boatload of money. But there is a shot we succeed. We’re selling tickets, sponsorship, merch, broadcast rights. There are no tickets for the PTO 100, as Dev says, the spectators are actually amateurs that race at the same time as the pros. Just like Super League, I don’t get it from a business perspective. But at least SuperLeague understands that where they will make their money is mass participation. Does Renouf understand that? (I hope so, he ran a race registration platform)