PTO Announces Big Changes to T100: No Contracts and Alternate Men’s and Women’s Races
Hayden Wilde wins T100 Wollongong. Photo: PTO
It wasn’t too long ago that the Professional Triathletes Organisation (PTO) announced “the successful completion of a Series C funding round, led by SURJ Sports Investment (SURJ) and supported by Cordillera, Verance Capital and Sir Michael Moritz”, adding a reported US$40 million (at least) to the organization’s coffers. Word is that some of that money went to paying off the pros who were still owed money from 2024, but despite that, it did signal that things looked good for another big year of the T100 World Tour.
Now the PTO seems to be taking some additional measures to ensure the remaining money will go as far as possible with “a number of revisions to the 2026 T100 Triathlon World Tour format, including an adapted competition schedule, removal of season-long contract commitments and increased event prize money.”
No More Athlete Contracts
One quick way to cut expenses will be the removal of season-long contracts. While this will, as the PTO said it its release, certainly provide “athletes with more flexibility throughout the season,” it does mean the end of a guaranteed “salary” for the athletes who were lucky enough to get T100 contracts.
The new system will be a “ranking-based selection of events” in which “the PTO will simply issue invitations to the best female and male professionals.” This will be based on the top-10 in the standings from this year for the first race of the season, along with the top-five in the contender rankings along with five wildcards. For all the rest of the races it will be the top-10 in the 2026 standings, along with the next eight in the PTO World Rankings and two wildcards.
9-Race Format, Fewer Mandatory Races
The T100 Triathlon World Tour will include nine races next year, with the men and women split up at four different events each before the Qatar T100 World Championship Final. The championship will be decided by each athlete’s best three races plus the final.
The move to men’s and women’s distinct races is, to me, a good one, if for no other reason than it streamlines the live coverage. All too often both the men’s and women’s races had to be held on the same day, which made for a crazy-long day of coverage.
The other huge benefit of this new schedule is that the athletes will have fewer commitments, and since they’ll need to hit at least three of the four gender-specific races, presumably the races will be a lot more competitive.
As PTO CEO Sam Renouf puts it:
“An unanticipated impact of our calendar in 2025 was a professional product that sometimes extended to six or seven hours – far longer than we’d ever anticipated when creating the T100 as the optimum distance to professionalise the sport. By adapting to this single race format, we can deliver the ideal product for all our stakeholders in a 4-hour event window consistent with other major professional sports, making our events for both genders even more competitive, rewarding and exciting for everyone involved.”
While the new format should bring the cost of doing the coverage down a bit, the PTO is really streamlining things on the prize money front. Each race in 2026 will offer US$275,000 in prize money, with the winner taking $50,000, second earning $40,000, third taking home $30,000 and working down to $3,500 for 20th. The series prize pool is now $1.45 million split equally between the men and women, with $100,000 going to the overall winners.
While, the per race prize purse is increasing, that’s all down a lot from 2024, which offered over $7 million in total prize money including $2 million at races, $2 million in series-end bonuses (with $210,000 for each series winner) and $3 million in athlete contracts. The 2025 season offers similar amounts, with roughly $2 million in prize money, $3 million in series-end bonuses and roughly $2 million in athlete contracts.
The lack of contracts should open the races up to more athletes, which is good, but with the heavy bias on T100 events in the PTO rankings, we’re not likely going to see a huge shakeup on the participation front, at least in the early going.
The three confirmed events for next year are Gold Coast (March 21-22), Singapore (April 25-26) and Vancouver (August 15-16). London won’t be returning as a pro race, although it will continue as an age-group event and will be hosting a WTCS race in 2026. Six more races will be announced.
T100/ PTO Impact
The recent moves might appear like a step backwards in many ways, but ensured continuation of the T100 Triathlon World Tour certainly seems to be worth the changes.
“Establishing the T100 Triathlon World Tour has been a significant step forward for our sport, leading to a better broadcast product, that for the first time has incorporated RaceRanger as well as live biometric athlete data for sports fans around the world,” the PTO Athlete Board said in the release.. “Our professional athletes are also being looked after in a way that has elevated the professionalism and care of professional triathletes – through increased athlete remuneration & minimum payments, airport transfers & accommodation, access to training facilities, bike mechanics, & massage, and, in general, a pro athlete focused set up at all T100 Events. We have seen how this environment has produced a world class tour and adapting the competition format to ensure the quality and consistency remains, while also searching for improvements for all stakeholders was paramount in deciding these changes. We are as excited as ever to see how the 2026 T100 Tour will unfold.”
There’s no doubt that the PTO has been a game changer for professional triathlon racing, and for years many triathlon pundits have wondered about the sustainability of the organization. This announcement seems to be acknowledging, at some level, what we all thought – the T100 Triathlon World Tour in its current form simply wasn’t going to viable over the long term. The IRONMAN Pro Series proved to be very successful without offering athlete contracts, and there’s certainly still more than enough money and exposure available through the T100 tour to attract top athletes, especially those making the move up from draft-legal racing.
We’ll have to see if there’s something I’m missing and the athletes don’t agree.
You can see the full release here.
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Professional Triathletes OrganisationPTOT100 Triathlon World TourNotable Replies
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I like separte mens and women’s pro events. As they said it allows them to wrap the coverage up in 4 hrs.
Seems like 2026 is all about cost cutting, separate races are also cheaper I imagine. Less road closure’s, etc.
Well they did their $40M Series C round (announced this summer) and previous Series B round in 2022. It’s weird that it’s a Series C and they are still trying to figure out product market fit, but perhaps with Surj Investments on the investor crew, they need to figure out what the product is for an eventual exit and if the current product (as of 2025) has not created a “monetizable media product” maybe they need time to figure out if they are a cross between a media company and an events company and need to buy time (runway) to figure it all out.
I am not exactly sure who are the eyeballs who are watching the live coverage. Almost none of my real world triathlete friends (the ones not on ST) watch T100. I tried to watch T100 London with my wife , who watches almost no triathlons, but watched cause she likes our trips to London and she said, “where is this course going??? Its like in an industrial dock!!!”
I wouldn’t worry about calling them series rounds really and it shows that the present ownership other than Moritz were not willing to fund the company’s losses. So they had to go raise the money. They will have to fundraise again or the present ownership agrees to fund the operations through capital calls. It’s not a tech company to funding it that way has been dumb.
What a weird thing to say. Couldn’t the PTO do basic math back then? Or were they hoping to start the women 10 minutes after the men but something prevented them from doing it?
They still don’t get it!!! “a better broadcast product’ doesn’t counter the fact that the underlying product is not very interesting. You have a bunch of people that are hard to differentiate in the swim, leading into hunched over people on bikes who again are hard to ‘see’, into a run where the athletes are covered up with hats and sunglasses. Swim: coloured cap and armbands would require only 5 colours to differentiate every athlete, with automatic time penalties for any athlete exiting the swim without their cap. Bike: road bikes please. And if the goal is to turn T100 into an events company, then using roadbikes would reduce the barrier to entry. Run: ditch the face covers. Make the atletes visible!
If the PTO really want to increase eyeballs, then why not try mixing it up with a Supertri format one race? Or a run-bike-swim where we can see how long Lionel and Sam can last on the swim before being overtaken. Or even teaming up the men with the women for a mixed relay? What is the PTO’s USP besides being ‘100’?
Yeah they are too stuck on the 100 distance. No one cares if it’s 99 kilometers or 102 Kilometers
You can still call it the T100 but as Jack Kelly has said many times - change it up!
Have a TT to start the weekend and adjust the times; have a course w a serious mountain climb; or ANYTHING other than the 100k distance
I’ll watch it all day long but I find super league morE exciting.
As you say, between contracts, race prize purse and Tour EoY Standings bonus, the totals were similar in 2024 and 2025. The total described for 2026 is ‘only’ $4.2M (8+2 races @$275k and the $1.45 EoY Standings bonus).
I’m sure the excellent per race prize purse will encourage the top Ironman athletes to double dip. For example IMNZ and T100 Gold Coast. And synch in T100 Vancouver to their Kona build.
As an aside I think you may be overdoing the “heavy bias on T100 events in the PTO rankings” bit. Nearly all the top ranked 15 WPro have at least one non T100 score (in their best 3) and those with none are the ?4 full on T100 leading element (Waugh, Derron, Gentle, Byram have all not qualified for Marbella). That the top 10 in the T100 standing are also well up in the PTO Rankings is unsurprising: they were in the top 25 last year (hence contract) and have raced well in seriously competitive races.
I will cross-link to your article in the T100 Series/Tour 2026 thread.
Renouf is clearly a revisionist or he thinks Triathlon fans are stupid and have short memories. Maybe that’s public facing for his new investors. BUT, when they did the opens, they did the races on back to back days in order to create that 3-4 hour tight race product. Then when they went to T100, I guess the partners couldn’t secure roads for multiple days. And you end up with an Ironman length broadcast. He knew it would happen if he didn’t have the races overlap.
You’re never going to get 8 hours of straight air time in the US on a linear platform. Obviously you can do whatever you want via streaming.