5 Things We’ve Learned From a Big Week of PTO Announcements

Sam Renouf, PTO CEO (left) and HE Saa d bin Ali Al Kharji, Visit Qatar Chairman (right).

A new race in Canada, a Grand Final venue for the next five years and … an indoor sprint race? It’s been a busy week for the Professional Triathletes Organisation (PTO). OK, we probably should add in to all that the final list of pros signed to the T100 Tour, but Ryan and I mostly covered that news last week.

Today, though, I’ll focus on stuff we can glean from the event announcements that have come over the last seven days.

1. The PTO is now very much an event company

Yeah, I know, “tell me something I don’t know.” I just feel its worth noting how long people like myself kept asking the PTO how on earth they could make their business work without age-group racing … only to be told that they wouldn’t need to. I had good company – during the pandemic, when IRONMAN was taking flack for not accepting money from the PTO to put towards pro prize purses, sources at IRONMAN told me that as far as they were concerned, the PTO was competition. Why? Because even back in 2020, when the PTO was focussed on pro racing, it was clear that any sort of reasonable business model would require that the organization start putting on age group races. At that time, then PTO chairman Charles Adamo, was quite clear that wasn’t the case.

Fast forward four and a bit years and you have the announcement of a race series that is mostly made up of PTO-owned events – both age-group and pro. Miami is not on the schedule this year – as a Clash event, the age-group revenue from that event wasn’t going to the PTO, so there wasn’t ever going to be much of a future there. San Francisco/ Alcatraz remains on the schedule this year as the lone event that won’t feature a PTO age group race, as far as I can tell. The PTO enjoyed huge fields at its London and Dubai events last year and no-doubt looks to build on that through the rest of the series.

The announcement of the PTO’s involvement in the indoor Lievin Triathlon World Cup race lends credence to that “events company” idea, since the PTO race crew will be on hand to help with the delivery of the event. It also, though, offers credibility to an argument that the PTO is a broadcast company – “most of the focus is to elevate the event on a broadcast perspective,” PTO CEO Sam Renouf said in an interview last week.

To me, what the PTO has become is an event company with a hook. As a former pro triathlete I would love to see that “hook” work. I’m guessing there are lots of pro triathletes who would agree. (Not to mention a bunch of PTO investors.)

2. 100 km is now “Long-distance”

While World Triathlon still offers a Long Distance World Championships (it’ll be in Pontevedra in June and consists of a 3 km swim/ 121 km bike/ 30 km run), the T100 Triathlon World Tour is designated, by World Triathlon, as the “official World Championship for long distance triathlon.”

As much as that sucks for the true “diesel engine” pros who excel at races over seven hours and aren’t as great at three- to four-hour efforts, it likely is a decent representation of where things are at right now in the sport. People appear to be less inclined to dedicate all the time required for a full-distance (read IRONMAN-distance) triathlon, but a half or, let’s say, 100 km race is much more palatable.

A long way of saying: this is probably a good move for the sport. IRONMAN isn’t going anywhere – it remains a multisport “Everest” for so many, but it sure would be nice to build the numbers in the sport through shorter races. More sprints and more Olympic-distance races helping to bring more athletes to the sport who then aspire to … half- or 100 km-distance races. (And, maybe, an IRONMAN.)

3. T100 Vancouver

There were a number of Canadian pros who were upset to learn that there would be no Canadian races in the IRONMAN Pro Series in 2025. There will be a T100 race, though, but that will help only a precious few since the field sizes are maxed at 20 men and women. Last week the PTO made official a race that I reported on last November (one of my last stories with Triathlon Magazine) – T100 Vancouver will take place June 14-15, 2025.

I got the lowdown on that race because Stephen Bordeau, the GM from Do North Events (the group that put on the PTO Canadian Open in Edmonton) and other PTO officials were at the Vancouver Park Board’s November meeting, looking for approval of an application to put on the race. I’d also been able to get hold of a staff report, which recommended the board approve the application.

That staff report included some interesting tidbits that weren’t included in the press release – that the race would “grow to be recognized as the World Triathlon America’s T100 Championships on a rotating 3-year basis,” and that “the expected participation in 2025 is 10,000 to 12,000.” To make that happen the kids races (the plan is to involved schools in the process) and running races will have to have some pretty major registration numbers.

It will also be really interesting to see what the triathlon numbers are like. IRONMAN 70.3 Victoria will take place about three weeks before and there’s no 70.3 races in Whistler or Penticton any longer. IRONMAN 70.3 Calgary doesn’t happen until July 27, so there’s no reason that the event wouldn’t attract a lot of long-distance triathletes from western Canada and the northwestern USA, right? (The Washington Tri-Cities 70.3 doesn’t happen until September, but IRONMAN 70.3 Coeur d’Alene does happen a week after – not sure how much that might affect things.) Vancouver weather is typically spectacular at that time of year, and the race site looks pretty awesome, too.

4. The PTO is still leaving the door open for Kona and Nice

2024 T100 champ Taylor Knibb on the bike at the 2023 IRONMAN World Championship in Kona. Photo: Kevin Mackinnon

I’m not sure what the T100 athlete contracts require in terms of number of races, but in terms of points, athletes should have lots of opportunity to be able to contend for the world title and still compete in Nice or Kona. Here’s how the PTO described the points system in today’s release announcing the race in Qatar, which will take place on December 12 and 13:

• Athletes score 35 points for first place to 1 pt for 20th place at each of the nine races
• The Qatar T100 Triathlon World Championship Final has increased points to up the ante (55 pts down to 4 pts)
• Each athlete’s best four T100 race scores plus the Qatar T100 Triathlon World Championship Final will count towards the women’s and men’s T100 World Championship titles

5. Scheduling is still a challenge for the PTO

Hey, don’t get me wrong – today’s announcement is a huge step forward considering at this time last year we didn’t know where a lot of the T100 races would be, let alone when. But … today’s big announcement finalizing the series at nine races still doesn’t have dates for Spain (presumably Ibiza) or Lake Las Vegas. Add to that the fact that the French events (in the French Riviera) take place the same weekend as IRONMAN Nice.

Obviously there are challenges with permits and tourism bureaus and other complications, but if you want people to add your race to their calendars, you’ll want to let them know when stuff is happening as they make their yearly plans.

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