by Dan Empfield and Amy White, September-November, '01 (www.slowtwitch.com)
One thing is certain never to change––the oft-proved truism that things always change. Nothing is forever, that we know, but foretelling the future is as impossible as forestalling it.
It used to be that a race that went two-point-four, one-twelve, and twenty-six was going to be a huge hit or a huge bust depending on whether an M-dot and the word "Ironman" were on the race brochure. Nowadays you can find M-dot races that can't draw 400, and non-M-dot races that require 400 port-a-potties. This begs the question, "What will long-distance racing look like five years from now?"
Perhaps we can get a glimpse of this in Europe. Though this continent usually follows North American trends, in the specific case of long-distance triathlon racing it seems to be setting its own trends. We're going to look at two non-M-dot races, Almere and Fredericia, and one race that just lost its M-dot––Roth––and is going to make a go of it without the Ironman name.
We're going to interview several Europeans who have some interest or perspective on this, and publish their responses here throughout the week. We'll also offer our own guess as to the direction Ironman-distance racing is likely to go, and our opinions as to whether the direction is positive or negative, and its probable impact on the World Triathlon Corporation and other companies invested in this industry.
HERBERT WALCHSHÖFER––R.D. QUELLE CHALLENGE ROTH
JURGEN ZACK––ONE OF EUROPE'S MOST RENOWN LD ATHLETES
FREDERICIA––SITE OF THIS YEAR'S LONG-DISTANCE WORLDS
HANK CALS––OF NETHERLANDS' STEIN TRIATHLON
ROTH'S RACE DIRECTOR HERBERT WALCHSHÖFER
The former Ironman Germany in Roth, famous for its cheering crowds, the world records set on the course and the super-competitive fields, is no longer affiliated with the World Triathlon Corporation, which owns the Hawaiian Ironman World Championships.
Roth's former race director, Detlef Kühnel, announced the decision in mid-August, saying the 14-year-old race would continue without its WTC franchise. While that means there will be no Kona qualifying slots on offer, Kühnel said the race would be able to reduce entry fees and offer greater amenities for athletes and their families now that the WTC fee is not part of the German race's budget. The "QUELLE Challenge Roth—The International Triathlon Festival" will feature a nearly weeklong festival that will include family and children's races, too.
The race is set for Sunday, July 14, 2002. Entry fees have been cut 180 Euros ($165) for folks who enter before the end of the year, and 195 Euros ($179) thereafter. The triathlon festival will start July 10 and continue through until Tuesday, July 16. Online registration will open Nov. 1 at www.challenge-roth.de.
Kühnel has now turned the race's reins over to Herbert Walchshöfer, who has worked with Kühnel on the Roth triathlon since its inception. We wanted to know a little bit more about the momentous changes made to one of triathlon's most famous races, so we asked Walchshöfer a few questions. Here's what he had to say.
AMY WHITE: Why did you decide to sever your relationship with the World Triathlon Corporation?
HERBERT WALCHSHÖFER: WTC demanded unsuitable and unacceptable changes in our race. Such as a mass start [the 2,700 athletes are started in waves at Roth], only one bike lap and much fewer athletes for the race. We were not willing to destroy the race and disappoint our athletes. So we decided to step out and provide the same quality and, through the money we save, even raise the quality of Roth.
AMY WHITE: You promised to lower entry fees with the new race, and you have done that. You have also promised to enhance the athlete's experience at Roth. Do you believe you were not able to do certain things for competitors in the past, given the licensing fees you paid to WTC?
HERBERT WALCHSHÖFER: The newly arranged triathlon festival, with a lot of new attractions, is very expensive. So we were not able to realize it earlier, because of the amount of money which went to WTC.
AMY WHITE: What else can athletes expect from the new race?
HERBERT WALCHSHÖFER: Everything will stay the same. We expect, as in the past, 120,000 spectators or more, the best atmosphere you can find at an Ironman distance race, a pasta party with open air music, a nations parade, volunteers party, huge awards ceremony, "Triathlon Meets TV" (the best films of the past 14 years)—plus the new festival character, with night runs from Hilpolzstein to Roth, and a beach party in the newly built public swimming pool. In total, we want to show the world and WTC that a race with "character" can work as good or better than an M-dot race. And the program athletes and their families get here in Roth is way better than the other Ironmans and at much lower prices. By the way, many American triathletes congratulate us on this step and say that we are on the right way.
Germany's Jürgen Zäck has been around the long distance racing scene since the 1980s, and has a keen insight on it. How does he think WTC races are faring against the non-licensed European races of similar distances, and vice versa? His plane just touched down in San Diego yesterday (August 28), and we caught up to him as he's just beginning the final phase of his preparation for 2001 Kona.
DAN EMPFIELD: Do you think Europe is on the cusp of a calendar of classics, like is the case in bike racing? Are races like Nice, Fredericia, Almere, and now Roth surviving and perhaps even flourishing in the midst of a big push for more and more WTC races?
JURGEN ZACK: Yes, these races are classics, but classics in their own countries. The Dutch do Almere, the Danish do Fredericia, but WTC races are still the ones a European is likely to travel to. Sure, Fredericia was the championship this year, but next year it will be a regional race again. And since you're including these races, don't forget Embrunman. And it's not just in Europe that non-Ironman races are well-liked. Strongman in Japan is probably the biggest long-distance race in Asia. But they're popular only in their own countries.
DAN EMPFIELD: Yes, I'd forgotten about Strongman. And about Embrunman, I wasn't sure how big Embrun was. Is it in the same category as these others?
JURGEN ZACK: Oh, yes, probably a thousand [entrants]. I believe it was in the running to be the French Ironman. I heard they were looking at Marseilles, and Avignon, and they considered Embrun. But I also heard that Embrun was considered too hard by WTC. It's even harder than Lanzarote. WTC was afraid, so I heard, of having the age-group racers on a course like that, and then possibly [having to race] again in Hawaii. So they chose Marseilles. The question is, how is this race going to do against Nice, and how will Nice do? Next year is going to be the interesting year.
DAN EMPFIELD: Yes, of course that is Roth's first year without an Ironman license. Are there more Europeans now that just want to do an Ironman in its own right, instead of having their European Ironman simply be a stepping-stone to Hawaii?
JURGEN ZACK: I think it's about the same percentage as it has been in the past. Lots of people will still want to do a European Ironman just to go to Hawaii. But I don't know if it's going to be Frankfurt. That's late. August is late. Many will try to Austria instead, or they'll consider Switzerland.
Frankfurt's organization will have to be perfect next year. Everybody's waiting to see how that race is going to measure up against Roth. That's why next year will be the big year. But I think this is good for Ironman. It's competition, and it's good. It's going to force Frankfurt, and also Marseilles, to be very well-run races. Otherwise, they'll look bad against Roth and Nice.
DAN EMPFIELD: So which races will you be doing next year?
JURGEN ZACK: To early to tell. We'll have to wait and see.
DAN EMPFIELD: I imagine it depends on if you auto-qualify in Hawaii this year.
JURGEN ZACK: Precisely.
DAN EMPFIELD: That would allow you a lot of latitude. Since you wouldn't have to requalify, you could pick either Roth or Frankfurt––whichever makes you the best offer.
JURGEN ZACK: Or I could choose neither, and only race one Ironman next year––Hawaii. That is what I would very likely do. However, if a German wins Hawaii this year––say if I won, or Lothar––there would be a lot of demand for that athlete in Frankfurt.
FREDERICIA
Ole Nikolajsen is the race director for the popular Fredericia Triathlon, an Ironman-distance race in Fredericia, Denmark, that this year hosted the Long Distance World Championships.
Nikolajsen’s race is not currently affiliated with the U.S.-based World Triathlon Corporation, but he says aligning it with the powerful brand may help his race thrive.
"We don’t know yet if we will continue," he said. "At the moment Fredericia is working to become a WTC member, as right now there is no WTC race closer than approximately 1,000 km.
"We are doing this because we feel the WTC are doing the right thing, and because triathlon in our view is Ironman, and the Ironman distance is too often frowned upon by the International Triathlon Union [which runs the world championships], who clearly only give priority to the Olympic distance, which is a pity, in Fredericia’s opinion."
Nevertheless, he believes the triathlon market in Europe is big enough to support independent races, too.
"Looking at the major well-known races—like Nice, Embrun, Almere and Fredericia—that have been going on for years, I feel convinced that there is a market for such races. These events have over the years created their own traditions, and this very fact—that they have their own traditions and do not try to copy Hawaii/WTC in names, etc.—will, in my opinion, be their survival. Also, these events have a national importance [that is] not to be ignored."
Joining that independent list this year is the hugely popular Ironman in Roth, Germany, which draws many of the best European pros and age-groupers and thousands of eager specators who make a day out of cheering athletes up the Solarerberg and the famous "beer mile."
Roth ended its long affiliation with the WTC over the summer and announced it would go forward independently in 2002 in part because race organizers no longer wanted to pay licensing fees to the WTC or make changes to the race that the corporation sought, like the introduction of a mass swim start.
WTC responded by announcing a new Ironman race in Frankfurt for next summer that will offer Kona qualifying slots. Another qualifying race in Germany had to happen, in Nikolajsen’s view, if only because each year Germany sends a large number of athletes to Kona and the triathlon market in Germany is very large.
Nikolajsen said he believes Roth will do just fine without WTC affiliation.
"I’m absolutely sure that Roth as a triathlon race will survive," he said. "They seem to have loads of money (prize money US$ 100,000).
"And where the money is the stars will come too, and consequently all the age-group competitors."
And, he says, there are plenty of triathletes who aren’t trying to get to the Ironman World Championships in Kona but nonetheless want to race over the Ironman distance.
"At the moment there is a big market for triathletes not wanting, not affording or simply not being good enough to qualify for Hawaii," Nikolajsen said. "Therefore, I believe there is room for races under WTC as well as races working as independent organizations."
The race in Fredericia has seen steady growth since its inception in 1995, when it drew 250 participants. In 1997 it hosted the European championships and had 500 competitors. In 2000, it had 680 competitors; this year, with the world championships at stake, 1,340 athletes traveled to the race.
"It is true that participation in a WTC race is a very costly affair, but I suppose it is a fact of life that supply and demand determine the price," Nikolajsen said. "The WTC is a business, and every business has a mission—to make money. The WTC guys are very good at that, and I think we should respect that."
HANK CALS––OF NETHERLANDS' STEIN TRIATHLON
Henk Cals, director of the Stein Triathlon in the Netherlands, has a plan. Right now, his race is a half-Ironman, but in 2003 it will make its debut as an Ironman-length race. He's been involved in the Stein race for the last 10 years, and its race director for the last five.
Stein would join Almere, another Iron-distance race, in the ultra-distance category for Dutch athletes and provide an attractive option for athletes in neighboring Belgium and Germany, too. Stein is just 10K from the German border and 2K from the Belgian border and draws nearly a quarter of its participants from those countries.
"For us the future for our sport is in long-distance racing," Cals said.
Cals, whose race—like Almere—is not presently a member of the World Triathlon Corporation family, says he isn’t sure whether the race will be affiliated with the WTC or another European series of ultra-distance races, should one come about. The race did have contact with the WTC over the summer, he said.
Cals and his committee are using the half-Ironman distance races "to get as much experience as possible in the areas of medical care, paramedical care and the managing of the care at food and drink stations during the races before switching to the Ironman distance," he said.
The race, called the Dutch Mountains Challenge Triathlon, is comprised of an out-and-back in the Julianacanal, four laps of a "hilly and very demanding" bike course, and the half marathon over four hilly laps in the city of Stein.
"Stein is in the very south of the Netherlands," Cals said. "The only part of our small country that isn’t flat!"
As proof of that, just look at what else is raced in the area every year—cycling’s Amstel Gold Cup, last won by the Rabobank rider Erik Dekker in a sprint finish against Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong.
Stein, which is 20K from the Dutch city of Maastricht, was the home of the European Championships over the Olympic distance in 2000, 1992, and 1998. The race has been offered since 1984, but the 2001 version was the first to cover the half-Ironman distance for age-groupers and elites alike.
"Before these [latest] championships we decided to switch to long-distance races after the year 2000," Cals said, "because our staff and the people of Stein are more interested in longer races than Olympic distance races."
Each year the race draws more than 1,000 participants and 40,000 spectators.
Triathlon is a family pursuit for the Cals clan. Henk's wife, Marianne, is the secretary of the Stein Triathlon Foundation. Their youngest son, Jochen, is a medical student and triathlete who was the Dutch junior champ in 2000 and is a member of the Dutch national team. Their oldest son, Bjorn, also works around sport: He's a physiotherapist.
And it’s not just one race that Cals and his committee offer over the weekend—Stein also boasts a kids triathlon, a bike race for schoolchildren, a sprint race for age-groupers and elites (under no-drafting and drafting rules) and a duathlon for elites in a special format.
The draft-legal duathlon is staged on a very short 1.5K course in a "chasing format" similar to that used in cross-country skiing: a field of 60 athletes start together in the first heat, covering 3K/9K/1.5K. Heat 2 starts after a 30-minute break, with the athletes leaving in waves separated by their Heat 1 finish times. The winner leaves first, with the second-place athlete chasing, and so on.
"It’s very spectacular and spectator-friendly, and the athletes love this format," Cals said.
In 2002 race weekend will be June 21-June 23, with the long-course race on Sunday, June 23. Visit the race’s website to learn more.
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