They haven’t been thus far. I’ve very politely asked for a little flexibility, and nothing more than an entry to another European race next year, as I can’t do the deferred Copenhagen date, and they’ve basically said ‘get stuffed’. Seems very short sighted to me.
I reckon if I’d entered a local race run by a small enthusiastic group, I’d be more likely to take what they offered, or eat the fee altogether.
The bigger players get less latitude in my book.
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Yes, totally. I wasn’t saying they are doing that and I was being critical for them not being flexible for those who truly deserve it.
On the teacher front, I think that maybe comes from their US mindset of rules? In the US, as I understand it, teaching is really flexible with your time. Most college level sports officials are teachers, as they can get time off whenever they want to go travelling around the country doing games. I personally knew one NFL official who was a teacher. So maybe the claims of UK teachers that the race no longer falls in school holidays doesn’t resonate?
WTC are still paying a VERY big dividend this year to investors… seems to me like they’re messing up big time here.
Agree with FP entirely. I wouldn’t dream of taking such a stance with a small event company, but WTC have the finances to handle this… they’re just choosing to give it to bankers instead of their customers.
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I think that this issue with IM is that most events are run by local franchises, so from a financial and accounting perspective difficult to manage unlimited transfers. I remember reading that the new IM owners want to bring the events back in house, but not sure where is saw that
Hadn’t seen that, I agree this is shocking and in my view a big mistake - ultimately customers should come before investors, as without customers there is no long term investment
Agreed. If that’s the case, then that’s shockingly bad decision making.
As an analogy, UK businesses are largely ineligible for any coronavirus related reliefs (outside of the employee furlough schemes) if they are choosing to pay discretionary dividends to shareholders.
I’d guess that sadly IM/WTC events are selling well enough to say, off you go, we’ll take a chance on missing your £££ in future.
Their status will remain as again, sadly, the smaller events will suffer, they either go out of business or try and hold on to the money offering deferrals which will piss off the one and done crowd who can’t see why they can’t get their money back.
Standard private equity business practice, right? Bleed the cash out of the business as long as you can before it falls over 
I think there is something similar happening around UTMB, but the translation was a bit sketchy. But equally the same people would have probably complained if they’d said here’s 100% refund but no deferral, you are back in the ballot.
I personally think the UTMB response is ok, they could have possibly offered 100% with no deferral though and let people take their pick, although it would have been more admin.
I thought Ironman had already brought nearly all the events back in-house, under Ben Fertic (pre Messick). Isn’t Lanza one of the very few Franchised races?
I think that there are several companies, for example Switzerland and Austria events are run by one company, German events by another. They are all separate legal entities, I don’t know if they are wholely owned by WSG or just licenced by WSG
It’s good they are doing what they are, it’s a slightly unique race in that’s it’s a big race and about 80% of the field are there because they’ve qualified. A lot still do collect for charity though, but I think there’s barely 3000 actual charity places.
I agree that April 21 might still be iffy, more for the race than travel TBH. But I’m kind of tied in to the 70.3 the week before so I might as well try and enter.
If I’ve read it right and due to my aging up I think I’ve got about 14 minutes in the M50 category, so I’m hoping that will be alright, I doubt I’ll be running sub 3:11 anytime soon. Your 16 minutes would easily be enough most years but yes it could be closer next year, but I think you’ll still be alright as a lot of races this year have been cancelled, and in the US.
There’s nearly 4 months before we even enter and a lot can change, the virus could die down or be more waves, but we’ll have a better idea and if there’s any chance of a vaccine or whether there’s any immunity from having it and subsequent herd immunity.
With a bit of luck I might see you there 
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I’m optimistically thinking that the smaller operators/races might do well out of it, especially the ones that aren’t run as the main source of income. (they have day jobs).
If (big if) they can survive, once folks can move around and feel better about being amongst others, they still might not want to go full monty by flying or being with 1000s of others. A lot of folks were saying that when this is over, they were going to support local business more.
Fairly localised travel, no hotels, not surrounded by loads of others. I can see that as a plus for the local scene?
That, and also a fair few people like me taking a ‘f**k WTC’ stance… 
Cornwall has always had a great independent race scene; the coastline immediately makes for ‘iconic’ events.
Absolutely. I’m living Cornwall race scene vicariously through Run4Adventure at the moment.
Like Jorgan says, I think they pulled nearly eveything in-house. A company called Triangle used to organise Austria, Nice, South Africa and Monaco 70.3, but I think they were bought out by IM or their licences lapsed quite a long time ago and they weren’t renewed.
Lanza is definitely still independent. Every time their licence is up for renewal the rumours start that the next year’s race will be the last because IM want to take the race in-house or Club La Santa don’t want to pay the asking price for the licence
Gutted. Not because I’ve had to pack away my AG tri-suit, but rather the upcoming battle with Easy Jet to get flight refunds.
good luck with EasyJet - all reports seem to indicate they are bastards to get money back from. I hadn’t booked my travel as I would have driven over as I’m only 45 mins from the Tunnel and I have a Frequent Traveller account with them. I have a number of crossings in the account to use and can book quite late and as soon as I get told when the ITU need me there. So those crossing tickets will sit in the account until I use them for something else
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