Similarly to Cycling, Triathlon had a massive boom towards the middle to end of the 2010’s
I suspect, once this recession is over, eventually it’ll settle back down to it’s normal levels that it had before that artificial inflation of numbers and events.
Recession smashes Events in general, as they’re an expensive luxury
You only have to look at (the relatively cheap compared to tri) Half Marathons in the UK. Even the biggest ones are lower on numbers than Pre-Covid/Pre recession
I think cycling events are the hardest hit at the moment
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The CTT brought about quite a bit of demise of time trialling, that and dual carriageway racing. I think there’s a bit of recovery with races on quieter roads and closed circuits now.
EA aren’t doing athletics many favours either, but often their funding depends on a few elites doing well.
Did they? I missed that one!
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CTT were always dying a slow death in the last 10-12 years. They are run by people that steadfastly refuse to accept that any change in their structure or governance model, might actually be a good thing.
The whole district voting thing to even get an issue mentioned in the ivory tower is outdated and useless. Any new ideas are actively discouraged and people who do follow the process are labelled as ‘troublemakers’
They keep talking about preserving tradition whilst actively chasing an arms war for times. They have zero ideas for actively encouraging younger riders in.
They hate the circuit racing, despite it being one of the better things to come along, especially if you are a parent.
I’ve tried to get on board with it but I just can’t and after a few years of racing over here, compared the Oz organisational attitude, I just can’t be assed to deal with dinosaurs.
Club10s and opens are good though, so much less bullshit.
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An old friend of mine joined the committee a few years back, he was going to effect change, a year later he resigned a beaten man. He sent a photo to out whatsapp group of a meeting once, it was quite obvious why nothing would ever change. you’d need 10 “changers” to even start to make inroads in such an archaic group of 60+ somethings.
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It’s a personal view but I’m mostly in agreement with FP, although throughout the 2010’s it was still getting reasonable numbers based on improving times on fast courses. People would travel to Hull or Wales for a 20/50 minute race.
But as you say too much resistance to change and the helmet debacle didn’t help them.
I think they have moved on a bit now but a lot of the regulars have moved on from TT’s or just stopped.
I know the circuit TT’s at Croft are popular though.
But in fairness sportives were massive about 8 years ago and there’s not many left, most people prefer audax now?
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that’s because the “reliability rides” which were a fiver with soup and cake after then became £35 plus a pop sportives which subsequently appealed to the triathlon types, but they have drifted away leaving unsustainable “events” and the real beardy cyclist types doing Audax instead
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Yeah, a few survived and hoovered up popular or club sportives.
Velo29 is local to me and have quite a few around the country which get decent attendances. But like Graeme says, while people are cutting costs they aren’t going to spend £50 for a bike ride on open roads for a few Jaffa cakes and a medal. The value is probably in the support they might get.
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The problem now of course is that the sport is staffed to the boom years and all are entrenched in their little empires…no one wants to budge an inch and so it requires some hard decisions or a full stop to effect change…
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The idea of people wanting to race their bikes on a busy dual carriageway still seems bizarre to me.
I can see that putting new comers off 
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I did a 50m TT on the A419 about 10-12years back when I was training for IMCH. It was super popular, as, I later found out, was busy with lorries, so you get dragged along by them
I managed about 10 miles before a gap in the hedge caused the wind to catch my rear disc and blow me into the right hand lane where I was lucky there wasn’t a truck going past at 60mph
I pulled off at the next exit and DNF’d
I get that you could put a decent time on the cards, but bloody hell it was dangerous
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The Steyning duathlon - which was always a part of the National Series - was always held on a bank holiday monday. The town would turn out - which was great - but the bike took you out onto the A24 and you would need to turn right at a roundabout. Getting across two lanes of bank holiday traffic needed nerves of steel, as did negotiating the roundabout with cars coming straight at you at silly speeds…
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My annual renewal just came through, £105. Another hefty increase.
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Email received 
“Hello, I’m Eve, Head of Social Impact here at British Triathlon, which means my role is to ensure the organisation and sport are more environmentally conscious”
I wonder how many other roles “Eve” has lol
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Does Eve’s role include forcing athletes to swim in a river of shit?
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no - that us TOs role……
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i have already received several messages wondering if they are finally going to drop the 4 year turnover of AG kit supply…let’s hope so, albeit 20 years late…
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Don’t forget sustainable blazers 
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annual renewal
Your account has now been charged £108 for the membership package “Ultimate Coach”
FFS and they wonder why people are no longer (voluntary) coaching with clubs
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Got to say that’s one of the benefits of being a TO who is no longer racing - we get our membership FOC. If I wanted to race I’d need to take out a membership package.
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