Windsa, victim of its own success?

just had an email warning me Windsor Tri is down to its last 100 spaces and to be quick. The race is in 2 weeks. This race sold out in a day in mid August less than 10 years ago. Then they rapidly increased prices. Thin I paid ~60 in 2009 and in 2010 I’m sure I did an Eton sprint / Windsa Oly double for ~100.At over £100 for an Oly now I’m not surprised it struggles but it also makes me wonder, is it the cost of is it that tri just about one and done big ticket Ironman ™ these days and Olympic distance is just not appealing

As discussed before. Mainly that people fixate on the Ironman Brand & distances. Plus you actually have do some proper swim training to do well in an Oly, so that dissuades many of the decent AGers :wink:

Triathlon has a swimming problem; people want the finishers medal, but many don’t do due diligence in their swim training. That bloke on IMJ is a prime example.

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numbers are down for shorter distance events across the board - something that’s been happening for a few years now; plus there are many more events around now which is diluting the entry numbers for the longer standing events that athletes may have done a few times (think I’ve done Windsor 4x).

As Jorgan suggests, numbers are also partly down to many early stage triathletes wanting to become an Ironperson so they bypass doing the old regime of a few seasons of sprints, standard, maybe middle distance and then long to just diving into the long distance stuff - the “zero to hero” shit that IMJ thrives on. Yet, give athletes an opportunity to get the GB kit and then sprint/standard qualifier events do well and the squads for Euro/World champs are stacked with Brits.

We live in odd times with tri participation. I partly blame GoTri - minimal costs involved - when events could do with beginners cutting their teeth on sprints/standard events and paying to race alongside more experienced athletes - the way many of us started.

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Quite :roll_eyes::smiley:

Walking it in under 17 hours is being a true hero :wink:

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It is a cultural problem that is not helped by many clubs and coaches…I would guess that the objective of Go Tri is to bring tri to the masses and increase participation which seems a laudable objective. This however caters for a lot of the one and done market, taking it away from the traditional sprint and std route.

What I am not seeing is who is picking up those who want to continue and - although it is a huge generalisation - clubs which ought to be picking up these ‘triathletes’ are culturally biased towards LD racing. There is far too much focus - and pressure - on doing a long race poorly than there is on doing a short race well.

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Did consider entering Windsor but 100 quid and the date didn’t actually suit me. I see as well you have to rack on the day before with a limited number of same day racking spots available for purchase. Bit of a piss take tbh

The day before racking is a pain but we used it as a family day out in past. That they now charge you extra to rack same day is a disgrace. You also forget the tenner parking fee (may be more now)

At least you get prior knowledge of that so can plan accordingly…i have seen events that decide their compulsory registration long after the race is advertised…

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Olympic / “Standard” is my favourite distance yet Windsor (and Leeds for that matter) just doesn’t appeal. Too much hanging around before hand, drafting guaranteed, congested course and congested logistics around the event.

Whether it is supply or demand, for an event organiser the effort and costs for a half must be similar and yet they can charge a higher entry fee. Why wouldn’t they go long?

I just keep using my prize money from the previous year to enter the next, I’ll keep going until I don’t anymore :joy:
Plus its local to us. Agree with the traffic on the bike course…

You get a great draft off a massive horse apparently.

If people realised that 2/3 of the swim is downstream and only the last 1/3 is upstream maybe more would do it. I did the Oly last year and enjoyed it, thought the bike course was decent enough and plenty of opportunity to use the aero bars. I did however get past by huge pelotons of twerps on TT bikes (no in aero) shouting keep left which is galling.

Even the STers are talking about the death of the sprint/Oly

https://forum.slowtwitch.com/forum/Slowtwitch_Forums_C1/Triathlon_Forum_F1/Triathlon_popularity_continues_to_erode…_P6947972/

They’ve been bemoaning the death of tri because there aren’t any decent US male triathletes for a while.

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WHAT ABOUT LIONEL???

Lionel sanders is the best thing since Pearl Harbour, no?

Lordy. LIONel is Canadian.

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I was thinking about the cultural fixation with long distance triathlon a couple of weeks ago at a local tri club swim session I coach. We have 8 lanes, Lane 8 (slowest lane) are mostly athletes who have recently done a learn to swim FC course and working to towards their first pool sprint triathlon (generally this will be a small local event, nothing as big/expensive as Windor but more serious than a GoTri perhaps). But then as soon as you move up to lane 7 (still swimming comfortably over 8 min for 400m) they’re all doing ironman / halfs. You have to go up to lane 3 to find anyone who’s goal races for the season are olympic / sprint distance.

On the flip side, the university club I coach has a culture which is completely focused on sprint / olympic, both in terms of people who are starting out and the performance end of things because the national university races are sprint / oly. You’ll get a few athletes each year looking to do longer distance but these are generally those who have been involved in triathlon for a few years doing “shorter” distance and looking for the next challenge. So not as much of the “zero to hero” type thing others have mentioned. But i can’t really see an easy way of creating this culture in a different set up.

Sorry newbie question, what is IMJ?

Ironman Journey - a Facebook group where intelligence goes to die.

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Ironman Journey FB group. Full of zero-to-hero attention seekers, and wet behind the ears know-it-alls. I left yonks ago.

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