Triathlon-New $7 Million T100 Race Series Launched – News18

LONDON: A brand new “T100” race collection for longer distance triathlon was launched on Tuesday, with eight star-studded 100km races that includes a prize pot that appears sure to tempt the most effective of each Ironman-distance and Olympic distance athletes.

Jointly launched by the Professional Triathletes Organisation (PTO) and governing physique World Triathlon, the T100 will characteristic races comprising a 2km swim, 80km bike and 18km run that can final round a TV-pleasant three hours.

Initially an eight-race programme, it is going to kick off in Miami in March, earlier than transferring to Singapore, California, London, Ibiza, Las Vegas and Dubai, earlier than culminating in a November Grand Final in a Middle East venue to be determined.

Each race may have a $250,000 prize fund, together with $25,000 for the winner. The total males’s and girls’s winners will gather $210,000 from an extra complete prize pool of $2 million. With athlete contracts and T100 Triathlon World Tour pool added into the combination, the collection will provide greater than $7 million in compensation – big cash for the game.

The new occasion marks a notable collaboration between the 2 organisations as World Triathlon beforehand had little involvement with lengthy distance racing, which is dominated by the Ironman model.

Crucially, the collection may have a constant subject, with 40 of the world’s main lengthy-distance athletes signed up and dedicated to compete in a minimal of 5 races and the Grand Final.

Britain’s Lucy Charles-Barclay mentioned she won’t be defending her Ironman world championship title to commit completely to the brand new occasion – the place the races are a lot shorter than Ironman’s 3.5km swim, 180km bike and 42 km run, however for much longer than the Olympic distance of 1500m, 40km, and 10km.

Tokyo Olympic champion Flora Duffy is one other large title who will line up alongside the present prime 15 ladies.

“I have tried the Olympic distance and loved the fast pace excitement of flat out racing, and on the other side of the spectrum I have raced and performed really well at the Ironman distance which is all about pacing and endurance,” Charles-Barclay mentioned. “But actually putting something in the middle and bringing in athletes from the long course and from the Olympic distance, it’s just a melting pot of talent and the level of racing is higher than we’ve ever seen in the sport.”

Britain’s double Olympic champion Alistair Brownlee and his lengthy-time Spanish rival Javier Gomez are among the many eye-catching names on the boys’s facet, with Brownlee saying he was excited in regards to the occasion partly due to the unknown issue as athletes haven’t but discovered the way to nail the pacing.

“I want to see more people watching top level long distance triathlon, being inspired by seeing the top athletes racing,” he mentioned.

With the Olympic triathlon occasions in Paris going down just a few days after the London leg of the T100, Brownlee mentioned there was room for each.

“It’s tough to create something new but ultimately it will benefit every triathlete, so having the PTO work closely with World Triathlon to put on these great races in great locations and broadcasting it around the world in the right manner – has got to be the way to go to bring in new fans and people who want to engage in the sport in a new way.”

Speaking on the London launch, PTO Executive Chairman Chris Kermode mentioned: “We’ve been clear that we wanted to create a tour that represents the pinnacle of the sport and have talked about the importance of a season-long schedule of high quality racing that sees the world’s best endurance athletes going head-to-head on a consistent basis in different, iconic locations.

“This is a significant step forward for the sport.”

In holding with triathlon custom, the occasions may even characteristic massive scale newbie “age group” races.

(This story has not been edited by News18 workers and is revealed from a syndicated information company feed – Reuters)