We Noticed: 70.3 Marbella Now in Malaga, PTO Investor Hosts World Triathlon Staff Meeting, Antarctic Tri and More

IRONMAN 70.3 Malaga

Malaga. Photo: Ayuntamiento de Málaga

After six years of hosting a 70.3 race, including last November’s IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship, Marbella won’t be holding an IRONMAN race this year. The event has moved about 60 km up the coast to Spain’s sixth largest city, Malaga. IRONMAN didn’t provide any details on why the race is moving, but as a much larger centre that is renowned for hosting some major sports events, presumably Malaga is better equipped to handle the financial outlay the event requires.

“The IRONMAN 70.3 event will help energise key sectors such as hospitality, retail, and services, while at the same time strengthening our image as a modern, open city committed to elite sport and high-quality tourism,” said Malaga’s mayor, Francisco de la Torre Prados.

The race in Malaga maintains the Spanish IRONMAN roster at six events, there are also stops in Calella, Barcelona; Valencia; Acludia, Mallorca; Vitoria-Gasteiz; and Lanzarote.

Spain has certainly made its mark as a nation ready to host major triathlon events – in addition to last year’s 70.3 worlds, the country has hosted the World Triathlon Multisport Championships in 2019 (Pontevedra), the World Triathlon Championship Finals in 2023 (Pontevedra) and 2024 (Torremolinos) and will once again host those championships this year in Pontevedra.

World Triathlon Staff Meeting

Photo: World Triathlon

Signalling the increased ties between the Professional Triathletes Organisation (PTO) and triathlon’s international governing body, World Triathlon held its annual staff meeting in Marrakech at Elkhalil Binebine’s home. In addition to being one of the PTO’s primary investors, Binebine is an avid triathlete himself. Over a one year period he took on five of the toughest races in triathlon including the 2024 IRONMAN World Championship in Kona and the 2025 worlds in Nice, IRONMAN Lanzarote, Challenge Roth and the Norseman Xtri event.

Khalili Binebine fuels up before the Norseman triathlon. Photo: Kevin Mackinnon

According to a press release from the event:

The annual staff meeting in Marrakech placed particular emphasis on aligning the entire organisation around the long‑term strategy and the key priorities for 2026 and beyond, with the agreement with PTO to deliver the Triathlon World Tour from 2027 together in the heart of all discussions and operational planning.

The Triathlon World Tour and the long‑term partnership with the PTO were highlighted as the central pillars of this vision. Key leadership spent significant time with newly appointed Secretary General Jon Wyatt on reviewing the new vision, to be launched in 2027, will integrated with existing World Triathlon properties and how 2026 will be used as a transition year to test formats, strengthen governance processes and optimise the calendar in preparation for the TWT launch. Particular attention was paid to ensuring athlete‑centred decision‑making, harmonised rankings and qualification pathways, and a unified commercial narrative that benefits both organisations and the wider triathlon ecosystem.​

The meeting also explored how cooperation with the PTO and other private organisers can be leveraged beyond the elite level to grow mass‑participation events, attract new audiences and improve broadcast and digital storytelling around the sport. By aligning on this long‑term strategy and clearly defining 2026 priorities, the leadership team committed to working as one integrated group, ready to implement the organisational changes required to support the successful launch and long‑term impact of the Triathlon World Tour.

All of which is a long-winded way of saying there’s a lot to get done as World Triathlon and the PTO look to combine the T100 Series, the World Triathlon Championship Series and World Triathlon Cup races in to a 100-race “Triathlon World Tour” next year.

You can read more about that new tour below in my interview with PTO CEO Sam Renouf.

A100 Antarctic Triathlon

The race is 100 km long, but it has nothing to do with he aforementioned T100 series. Organized by 70.3 age-group world champion Ilya Slepov, a Russian triathlete and entrepreneur (he founded RunLab, a chain of running stores in Russia), the race will take place on King George Island and includes a 1 km swim (in the Southern Ocean with water temperatures around 0 degrees), a 66 km mountain bike and a 33 km run. The event is set to take place between February 25 and March 8, 2027. In addition to the cold water, the air temperature at that time of year typically ranges between -3 and 5 degrees C (26 to 41 degrees Fahrenheit).

The field will be limited to 50 athletes, who must be “experienced long-distance triathletes” and have a “cold weather and endurance race background.” There’s no information about the cost of the event provided in the promotional materials, but it will no-doubt be an expensive endeavour. Athletes will fly from Punta Arenas, Chile to King George Island, then spend time on “sailing schooners moored near Bellingshausen Station,” with guides who will lead competitors on trips to “the Melchior Islands, the Lemaire Channel and the gentoo penguin colony on Cuverville Island.”

According to the event website, there will also be a scientific component:

It’s a live experiment, a study of how the human body and mind adapt to extreme cold, isolation, stress and peak physical load … The project brings together athletes and researchers to explore resilience, adaptation and human potential in polar conditions.

For those feeling that they’ve heard of a marathon challenge that heads to the Antarctic, you’re thinking of the Great World Race that includes seven marathons on seven continents in one week. That event includes marathons in Wolf’s Fang (Antarctica), Cape Town (Africa) , Perth (Australia), Abu Dhabi (Asia), Algarge (Europe), Cartagena (South America) and finishes in Miami (North America). The entry fee for that race is 49,500 Euros.

PTO Ranking System

Last week the PTO updated its World Ranking System and, surprise of all surprises, it appears to dramatically favour T100 events. The new system now increases the number or races eligible for scoring from three to four over a a rolling 52-week period. (According to the PTO this is “in light of recent athlete trends towards more racing.” The PTO sites stats that indicate that athletes in the top 10 of the standings now average 7.6 race finishes a year compared to 5.8 races in 2022. This is no-doubt the result of the addition of the T100 Series and the IRONMAN Pro Series being added to the annual calendars.)

“The updates to the 2026 PTO World Ranking System reflect the changing sport with athletes racing more and the T100 and IRONMAN Pro Series becoming established on the professional calendar,” the PTO Athlete Board said of the changes. “With no limitation on the number of middle or full-distance events within the four counting races, the 2026 PTO WRS continues to meet the core principles of being transparent, objective and fair regardless of pro athletes’ racing preferences. Meanwhile, the removal of the 5% bonus on certain races makes it simpler and easier to understand for athletes and fans.”

The PTO rankings will play a big factor in getting into T100 races. The top-10 athletes in the “T100 Race to Qatar” standings will receive automatic offers for each event, with eight slots per race “offered to athletes based on PTO World Rankings.”

Since T100 races are ranked at the same level at IRONMAN World Championship events, the new system favours athletes who compete at more T100 races. The new ranking system moves Lucy Charles-Barclay from first to third in the PTO ranking despite her winning the 70.3 worlds, with Kate Waugh, who won the T100 Series, moving to the top of the standings, followed by Julie Derron. IRONMAN Pro Series champion Kat Matthews remains in fifth in the ranking. On the men’s side of things, there aren’t any changes within the top three as Hayden Wilde, Jelle Geens and Mika Noodt remain in front, but Kristian Blummenfelt moves from fourth to seventh in the standings, despite his two podium finishes at both IRONMAN world championship events (third in Nice, second in Marbella).

The big change with the new system is counting the fourth race. I would argue the system always favoured T100 racers, since all the T100 races were classified Diamond level, while only the IRONMAN World Championship and IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship were considered at that same level. At the end of the day it was always hard to say that the PTO Ranking ever served as a true “world” ranking system. The new changes just make it less so. None of which really matters if the main goal of the ranking is to help seed athletes heading to T100 races.

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