During this year’s Annual General Meeting of Triathlon New South Wales I asked a series of questions regarding development of multisport competition in NSW. To be frank, the answers weren't very helpful or the questions weren't really answered to my satisfaction. With the largest population in the country, NSW is the ideal place. It is our duty to lead from the front and grow the multisport component of our sport per the first sentence of our own website's about page which says:
Triathlon NSW is the governing body for Triathlon and Multisport in NSW. Three disciplines of swimming, cycling and running make up the base format of a triathlon. Duathlon combines cycling and running, whilst Aquathlon combines swimming and running.It is high time that NSW took the lead and developed each of the multi-sport variants to ensure a full and vibrant array of competition is available for members.
Duathlon
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| Emma Pallant claims 2015 World Duathlon Championship |
The run/bike/run format has been around for almost as long
as triathlon. For too many years, at all levels, it has been the red-headed
bastard step-child. Ignored for fifty-one and a half weeks of the year, all of
a sudden it becomes flavour of the month for the ITU when the World
Championships occur, albeit (again) in a half-hearted effort.
Take the recent 2015 ITU Duathlon World Championships as a
case in point. Whilst many, many age-group athletes descended on the biggest
ever duathlon in the Southern Hemisphere very few elite athletes did. Whilst
Emma Pallant was a deserving winner, how would she have gone against, lets say,
Gwen Jorgensen or Non Stanford? And it’s not just the elite athletes giving the
cold shoulder to duathlon. The ITU themselves scheduled a World Cup, in Turkey, against
the race. There was no video, at all, of a World Championship. There wasn’t
even proper live commentary available on the ITU website. In fact the media
work done by the ITU was below that done for most Continental Cup races.
Back home it is no better. In the five years I’ve been in
the sport there has only ever been one official TNSW Duathlon Series. That was
in 2010 and included two races at the Australian
Botanic Gardens in Mount Annan,
two Hills Tri Club Duathlons in Parramatta
Park and a TNSW event
(run for TNSW by Macarthur Triathlon Club) at the Sydney Equestrian Centre. The
latter proved to be a one off event; the former has now died too. Since 2010
this discipline of the sport has pretty much been left to rot.
What can be done?
Triathlon NSW has established a partnership with a race
director to host races on its behalf. To the best of my knowledge this extends
only to triathlon which leaves the door open for other partnerships that could
be formed. More than anything, what NSW needs is a State Championship. It needs
a stand alone, one off event; a big feature that can be a highlight on the
calendar.
At this stage the sport is not in a position to host both a
sprint and a standard distance event. A sensible place to start is with a sprint
duathlon. The 5km run/20km bike/2.5km run is an achievable distance for most
athletes. To make it work the event needs to be guaranteed clear calendar space
and needs to be held in a central location. Realistically it needs to be
somewhere in Sydney.
The June long weekend would be ideal as it allows country clubs the time to be
able to travel down and compete. Local clubs should then be utilised to establish a
billeting system to bring down the external costs for participants from afar.
Further to running a State Championship, TNSW needs to
organise a state series. To cut down on costs, the selected races could contain
up to, (lets say) 6 races selected from club events. This has the effect of
increasing the size of the race crowds for clubs and thus increasing their opportunity
to increase their income.
Aquathlon
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| 2014 Richie Walker Memorial Aquathlon |
To my knowledge there are three stand alone Aquathlons on the NSW
calendar for 2015-16, the somewhat expensive race on Bondi
Beach, the Australia Day Aquathon
(sic) in Wollongong
and the Richie Walker Memorial Aquathlon in Cronulla. The latter event this
year doubles as the Australian Championship. There is no state championship,
certainly no state series and very few, if any, club events. With the Aquathlon
World Championship set to become a stand alone event away from the Triathlon
World Championships we now need to give our athletes more opportunities to
race.
I envisage a similar set-up to Duathlon. One stand alone
State Championship and then 5 or 6 club races set aside to form a series. You
could offer these races to different clubs from the duathlon ones to share the
opportunities around.
Hydrothon
The most recent Triathlon New South Wales annual report mentioned the
sanctioning of a ‘hydrothon’ where the cycle is replaced by a surf ski. This
cuts too close to the multisport area that is covered by Surf Life Saving
Australia. Given our need for a close relationship with SLSA and their clubs
for our water coverage in triathlon races this is a case of cutting off your
nose to spite your face.
Aquabike
This race, a swim/cycle without the run has been tried a few
times and has failed to take off. File it in the maybe one day category.
Long Distance Duathlon
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| 2013 ITU Long Distance Duathlon World Championship |
There is a multitude of long distance triathlon events in
NSW (Ironman Australia,
Ironman 70.3 Port Macquarie and Penrith, Husky Long Course, Challenge Forster
and Batemans Bay etc)
but there is no event on our schedule for these athletes in winter. There is
however a long course duathlon world championship. Why can’t NSW organise the
first ever long course duathlon in Australia? It will take a hardy
group of athletes and may remain a niche event but you won't know unless you try. If after market research it doesn't appear to be a huge event, the first time could
be run alongside one of the early season long course events like Challenge
Forster to minimise event costs.
Cross Triathlon
The 2016 World Championship at Lake Crackenback
offers up a great opportunity to really push forward this area of the sport. It
doesn’t need to be huge but a 3 race season with at least one in the Sydney basin would be a
good sized attempt to maintain the growth. The one off XTERRA Asia-Pacific
Championship never really got the support it needed. TNSW needs to actively
support this to make it happen and should again attempt to engage XTERRA in a
NSW based race. If done successfully this could be a race to get athletes to the
official ITU Cross Triathlon World Championship and also to the XTERRA ‘World
Championship’ in Maui.
Winter Triathlon
Although this is a niche internationally, it is still a part
of the sport’s remit and could potentially become a Winter Olympic sport one
day. It would not be impossible to set up a cross country ski/mountain bike/cross country run course in New South Wales or Victoria; they're the only
places that can guarantee the snow required for such an event. If scheduled alongside one of the major events up in the high country during the snow
season there is the potential for a successful event to be held. This really
only needs to be a one off event each year. It could potentially be another
revenue stream if Triathlon Australia
was to select a team for the World Championships based off of it.
Conclusion
There are no shortage of races on offer in New South Wales. The continued prevalence of
local club races allows for a strong base and the average club’s commitment to
this through both triathlon and duathlon is commendable. To continue to grow
the multisport components Triathlon NSW needs to continue to support and
provide development opportunities in the other multisport arenas. There needs
to be a clearly indicated State Championship at each event and there is
potential for a multisport athlete of the year award to be introduced for the
most successful athlete across all disciplines.
It is entirely doable and with Triathlon New South Wales no longer
doing their own events, there is time and man power. Lets make it happen.
