Most are totally unaware of that. I only know from my days as a club Chair and the Castle Tri fallout in 2015. I made members aware of the issues and the usual twats “we will race, doesnt matter if they are permitted, we are insured blah blah” Until i said your membership insurance doesnt cover you there.
3 Likes
Communication has never been a strong point of head office…however, i think it is also incumbent on both the EO and the athletes to be more aware and to communicate/research early…
1 Like
EOs might not want to dissuade potential entrants by presenting themselves as lesser in any way - why say anything about BTF if they’re not a BTF event
2 Likes
It is within the EO’s best interest that all participants are suitably insured…
2 Likes
Of course, but I think your point was that non-BTF EOs should advise that they’re non-BTF? I expect they’ll quietly just insure their event by other means instead.
3 Likes
You would think so, but then there are some unscrupulous EOs who will charge for a BTF day licence, yet not take out a BTF permit. That charge goes straight into their pockets and not the BTFs so is technically fraud - and the BTF have taken action against a few who have done this.
1 Like
But that doesn’t give the participants the cover they are expecting…
Hence also stating that participants should ask questions…
If it’s anything like Oz, the TA insurance is there more for the RD than anything. They have introduced a quasi third line forcing in Oz now, where you have to be a member of TA to even join a club.
After this genius move and the predicted massive drop in membership, TA then went on a charm offensive trying to extoll the benefits of insurance, which when looked into, are bloody woeful. So many get out clauses, like you have to have your training session logged with a coach or a plan documented in order to be covered when training.
The other biggie was that you have to exhaust your private health insurance first, before TA kicks in. (private health is compulsory in Oz).
It was pretty worthless and whilst there are some benefits of being a TA member, insurance was definitely not one of them.
1 Like
Yep…I am certainly not convinced that the insurance does what it says on the tin…but, if I understand it correctly, an athlete racing with a day licence gets public liability cover…nothing more, nothing less…
2 Likes
Interesting. Hadn’t read that, but yes is clearly stated 
As you say TriAus is a shambles. But if we want there to be a decent sport here we also need to support them with money for them to invest, so a bit of a catch-22.
4 Likes
The main problem is they went through more relaunches and makeovers than Kylie, and with each one they seemed to get worse.
The biggest PR disaster they faced was the David Burt fiasco of about 20 yrs ago. That was pretty bad but triathlon as a sport was riding high and the funding was pinned to doing well in the Olympics but read in isolation you’d have to wonder how any org could survive it.
Then there were was a revolving door of the high performance coaches and each one promising the ‘next big thing’. Then it was pretty much a 2-3yr cycle of newsletters and announcements saying ‘give us a chance’ we need time and funds to get it right’.
Then came the club thing and IMO, that was the final straw for a lot of athletes that were either moving on anyway or raced at club level occasionally with families but couldn’t justify the cost. Mostly though, I think there was this absolute dismay about what TA did for their money. (very little).
All the usual bollocks about needing loads of kit for AG worlds and myriad clipboard carriers and hangers on being funded by members etc.
There used to be a swim coach on transitions called Mick Maroney (famous swimming family) he was on the TA or TNSW board, I forget which but TNSW had a lot of influence due to numbers. Whenever any criticism of TA came up, he would staunchly defend and come out with the tired of trope of ‘if you don’t like it, get involved and join’.
So two people on Transitions did, they got on the Board at different times and both left after a couple of years saying that TA simply did not want to do anything different behind the scenes, despite what they were saying publicly. Sounded just like CTT here.
There was a well respected RD in Sydney called Nick Munting, sadly passed away now, he used to give us a rundown on the membership numbers and the dwindling numbers was staggering. In its heyday, something like 70,000 numbers. I doubt there would even be 15,000 now, even with the club forcing.
TA were always more concerned about preserving their existence than actually doing anything for athletes outside of the short course/elite program. Maybe it’s changed now? but I doubt it.
5 Likes
Anyone know how many members BTF have, with a population pool 3X bigger?
2 Likes
You’d not be comparing the same thing. 70k members for TA was 20 odd years ago, you’d need to compare TA’s membership now with BTF’s now.
I had a quick skim of the BTF annual report but I could only see a reference to membership income, which was £1.1m
3 Likes
In 2020 after Covid it said there had been a drop to 29***k. That was the last time I see a report though as I wondered what Covid had done to the sport then.
1 Like
OK just been hunting through the 2023 report and its 27k now, 22k of which are TE
and to add 2019 was just under 34k
3 Likes
Compared to 15700 for Aus, up from 14000 last year
1 Like
That’s the club forced thing maintaining probably. There was a massive drop in numbers when they pushed it through. (3rd line forcing is illegal in Oz, so I’m not quite sure how they got away with it!).
Good to see a rise in numbers though, let’s hope TA learn from past mistakes.
1 Like
That’s an alarming drop!
2 Likes
essentially 20% drop in numbers since Covid, but highlights one of the reasons the BTF are struggling to make ends meet. Problem is they rode the crest of 2012 and had no forward thinking of how to keep developing as the sport just grew due to the new levels of exposure, covid then came and kicked it in the teeth, im guessing people realised that they had better things to spend ever increasing amounts of money on, whilst getting their racing fixes at parkruns, or maybe ultras which are all far better value.
4 Likes
be interesting to see the numbers ratio between officials & members has changed in last 15 years . my guess there is more officials
2 Likes