World Triathlon and the Professional Triathletes Organisation (PTO) will be tied at the hip for the next twelve years, reaching a strategic agreement to “grow the sport” together through 2036.
The agreement includes the sole and exclusive rights to produce “the Official World Championship Tour of Long Distance Triathlon,” as well as a framework to potentially produce shorter-distance events alongside T100 Tour races. There are also provisions regarding collaborative anti-doping efforts, rights management (including media and broadcast rights), and sponsorship.
World Triathlon president Marisol Casado said in a release, “We believe that it is both ours and PTO’s responsibility to double down on the good work that we’ve already started and use the great exposure our sport enjoys at the moment as a catalyst to grow deeper engagement with the sport’s committed fan. We also want to find a way to promote our sport to the broader sports fan. We believe we’re already starting to answer part of that question through our partnership with the PTO around the new T100 Triathlon World Tourand want to ensure we provide it with the right support and solid foundation to go from strength to strength.”
Casado also specifically pointed out athletes progressing from the World Triathlon Championship Series to T100 as a future pipeline for talent development.
PTO Chief Executive Office Sam Renouf added, “We have had a very productive relationship with World Triathlon since our first event, including hosting the World Long Distance Championships alongside the Collins Cup in 2021. In working closely through the formation and then launch of the new T100 Triathlon World Tour – quickly becoming the pinnacle of long distance racing – one of the by-products has been the discussion and identification of other opportunities where we can grow the sport. By forming a 12-year partnership, both sides have the opportunity to invest together in the longer-term development of the sport.”
The next T100 race is October 19-20, 2024, in Lake Las Vegas.
Smart move for World Triathlon. Likely a necessary one from the PTO.
I wonder what “the Official World Championship Tour of Long Distance Triathlon” means compared to the WT Long Distance World Championship. Are they going to become one and the same now at the age group level?
I can definitely see this becoming a real power move if PTO is going to entrench itself with age group T100 races that feed into an age group world championship.
It would then become whatever everyone already assumed it would be from the outset. An attempt to nibbled at Ironmans pie.
Challenge once again is potentially even more out in the cold.
It won’t. But this is interesting. Makes me wonder how much money the ITU will be spending to essentially compete with Ironman, which a governing body should not be doing to begin with.
@rrheisler I’m interested in the financials here, this now means the ITU is carrying more of the financial burden and Moritz just pays the contracts? 12 Years seems like a high risk without an upfront payment.
@Lurker4 Challenge being left out in cold is pretty hilarious since Zibi is/was on the PTO board. But I suppose Challenge Family was actually replaced by World Triathlon as the event promotion partner for them to piggy back their races off of and do no work.
Unlikely. I almost think the opposite could happen, more money flowing to the WTCS from the T100 investors as both series are ‘integrated’ into a calendar that makes sense, possibly with some locations doubling as both T100 and WTCS venues?
A combined T100 and WTCS tour could be good for the sport. Increased focus on specific weekends of racing, increasing publicity, reducing spread of focus, and providing intriguing talking/comparison points of athletes and courses.
Combining the two series and drawing athletes from both short and middle distance will also increase legitimacy and potential investor buy in.
Yep, but what’s the point in sharing a venue if the courses are different? WTCS is not like World Triathlon long course championships for age groupers with thousands of fans supplied to the T100.
