THE BIGGEST TRANSITION
TRIATHLON RACING WILL SOON RESUME IN THE UK MAINLAND, BUT JUST WHAT WILL THE SPORT LOOK LIKE IN A COVID WORLD? IN THE FIRST OF A TWO-PART SERIES, WE ANALYSE THE MEASURES IN PLACE, THE APPETITE FOR RACING AND WHAT ATHLETES CAN DO TO MAKE TRI A SAFER EXPERI
The 2020 triathlon season’s finally been given the green light. But, as you’ll discover, it won’t be quite as we know it…
Triathlon is used to adapting. When your origins stem from melding three sports, there are always going to be kinks to smooth out. Right now, though, tri faces its biggest transition – and in our socially distanced new world, that’s meant in every sense. Covid-19 has lanced few other industries more perniciously than hospitality and events, and while how tri returns will be examined domestically here, and internationally next issue, first lies the question of whether we should be back at all.
“Can we deliver events safely with social distancing measures in place?” asks James Robinson, the chief commercial officer of Limelight Sports that licences and runs the London Triathlon, Blenheim Triathlon and London Duathlon, and welcomes upwards of 25,000 athletes on an annual basis. “We’re constantly revising our plans. It’s fine saying we could deliver a safe event, but if the consumer confidence isn’t there, nobody will come anyway. It’d be remiss if we were seen to be putting commercial interest above public safety. We have to reach out to our consumers and ask.”
Gary Roethenbaugh, founder of MultiSport Research, is monitoring that appetite, and his latest figures revealed a cautious outlook: 17% of those polled aimed to race as soon as restrictions were lifted; 26% believed the autumn would be possible. In a snap social media poll, 220 found racers were polarised, with 45% having written off 2020 and 40% keen to take part. Triathletes look split between a steadfast refusal to be either compromised on safety or cowed by a pandemic. What’s certain is that, for triathlon to prosper commercially, races need to return.
“If the industry didn’t realise how vital events were before the pandemic, it certainly does now,” Roethenbaugh says. “Race cancellation is a house of cards. As well as the impact on organisers, sponsors need events for awareness, coaches need them to give athletes goals, professionals need the payday. As Cervélo co-founder Phil White told me recently: ‘Darwin didn’t say the strongest will survive, but the quickest to adapt.’”
TAKING A LEAD
British Triathlon has taken a lead, painstakingly producing extensive ‘Covidsecure’ guidance for the UK’s 400-plus registered organisers that deliver events from introductory GO-TRIs to larger scale operations. But it’s not been easy. In trying to adhere to changing government directives, the governing body hasn’t been helped by the divergent positions of the Home Nations’ assemblies. It’s been like
attempting to hit a moving target – only for the pistol to jam.
Alongside regular round-table discussions, British Triathlon joined other sporting bodies, like British Cycling, England Athletics and Run Britain, in lobbying the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, and with progress stymied, even wrote to the government to express its disappointment over the lack of clarity. To many, pubs opening before swimming pools was indicative of misplaced priorities and sparked an #OpenOurPools campaign that was also backed by British Triathlon.
Something of a breakthrough arose on 9 July, when the government eased restrictions on outdoor sports and offered headway for ‘aerosol generating procedures’ such as tri. As we come to terms with both the new lexicon and a return to racing, British Triathlon race permits are the golden ticket for organisers. Providing race insurance and access to accredited technical officials, they also add levels of credibility and reassurance for athletes, so a nonsanctioned race isn’t something any organiser 220 spoke with would entertain.
“We’ve had weekly meetings to review the everchanging landscape and British Triathlon has been at the forefront,” Robinson explains. “We’re working glove in hand with them as strategic partners. Ignoring the guidelines and risking the event being nonpermitted is not something we’d do.”
The easing of restrictions comes too late for some. Castle Triathlon Series chief Brain Adcock was “80 per cent” hopeful of running his Castle Howard event in north Yorkshire in late July, before the host venue’s reservations intervened.
For Adcock, triathlon was unfairly and inflexibly deemed a ‘mass gathering’, lumped in with music festivals for blanket restrictions.
“The government got their fingers burnt with the Cheltenham Festival in March, so are nervous about mass participation,” he says. “But a tri can be like golf. You can turn up, race and go home, and we can still have a good volume [of athletes] going through the site.”
Adcock’s bullish attitude is reflected in other race directors 220 spoke to, who remain determined to plot a course through the myriad health and safety risk assessments, insurance renegotiations and re-engineered race experiences. Having already navigated a customer relations minefield of postponements and refunds, there’s now stoicism spawned from knowing that livelihoods are on the line. A return to racing isn’t for everyone, though. John Lunt, the founder of Human Race and competition manager for triathlon at London 2012, cancelled the Brighton & Hove Tri in late June despite it not being slated until September. “People haven’t been able to prepare,” he says. “My concern is that if someone hasn’t been able to get to any open-water venues, and I chuck them in the sea in Brighton on a choppy day, it’s adding to the risk factor. It’s not just coronavirus as a medical issue – it’s confidence in the market, confidence with your suppliers and local authorities, and the other statutory bodies involved. Then, even if all those are satisfied, you have to look at the financials. If you don’t hit your break-even point, you have to question why you’re doing it.”
READY TO START
Blenheim has been rescheduled for 13-14 September and remains on course, for
“THE GOVERNMENT GOT THEIR FINGERS BURNT WITH THE CHELTENHAM FESTIVAL… BUT A TRIATHLON CAN BE LIKE GOLF. YOU CAN TURN UP, RACE AND GO HOME”
now. Regularly a sell-out with 8,000 entrants, Robinson accepts numbers will need to be capped. “Based on the guidance we’re taking, that capacity wouldn’t be possible without extending the weekend into three or four days,” he says.
The limiter is transition. Anyone who has competed at Winston Churchill’s birthplace in leafy Woodstock in Oxfordshire will recall how the main enclosed courtyard is revolutionised into a thriving transition zone during triathlon weekend. “It’s our biggest pinch point and I suspect so for everyone else,” Robinson says. “The size of your transition will be the deciding factor as to the size of the event you can put on. Athletes are normally racked 90cm apart, so it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out we’re lowering our capacity.”
Robinson is grateful to the commercial sponsorship partners of Blood Cancer UK, Volvo, Hoka One One and Huub, but a lower footfall means less exposure for each brand. “To be fair, they’ve been outstanding and stepped forward to address it before we did,” says Huub founder Dean Jackson. “It’s a case of looking at contracts and working through it.”
In terms of the remaining calendar for 2020, put bluntly it’s been decimated. On a representative level, there’ll be no British,
English, Scottish or Welsh championship races and no age-group qualification events. At time of press, just 17 British events had permits for August, including six duathlons and four aquathlons, with most being low entrant number, gateway options such as GO TRIs.
There are rare exceptions. The Grandes Roques Triathlon in Guernsey, for example, successfully took place as far back as 7 June (see p90). Guernsey was granted a British Triathlon permit, alongside permission from the local government, for the socially distanced event where 60 athletes set off in a staggered start. However, the island also hadn’t had a coronavirus case since 4 May – a day when England reported 204 Covid-19 related deaths.
RACE-DAY WINDOWS
Iain Hamilton runs One Step Beyond, the company that organises the Outlaw series of races, and is hopeful that the Outlaw X, which takes place in Thoresby Park, Nottinghamshire, on 27 September, will
go ahead. For Hamilton, the restriction on numbers is about the attitude of the hosts. “It’s a massive venue, the car parks are huge and we can easily rack 3,000 people from a social distancing point of view,” he says. “But we can only work to what the venue deems as appropriate.”
For now, Hamilton advises athletes plan for bringing one spectator and be prepared for a more self-sufficient race experience. Race briefings will be digitally delivered, and triathletes will be asked to turn up at an allocated time to rack their bikes, with an emphasis on minimal faffing. “People have been allowed to do whatever they want,” Hamilton adds. “You’ll now have an hour window, be kicked out and the next load will come in.”
British Triathlon guidance compels athletes to self-assess their readiness to take part, with those who have recovered from Covid-19 being urged to seek medical advice. Everyone attending an event must also complete and submit a pre-event health questionnaire that’ll be shared with the NHS Test and Trace service.
Temperature checks could even be in place, with anyone running a fever barred from racing and asked to self-isolate. “There’s a simple device that’s just held to someone’s forehead,” Hamilton says. “One dilemma could be that people get nervous and we won’t know if that’s why they’re hot… or if they’ve got a virus!”
There’ll be no on-the-day entries, and while tri is already renowned for its lengthy kit list, additional drink and snacks should be supplemented by hand sanitiser. As for the actual racing, British
Triathlon guidance decrees that for the first six weeks after public swimming pools open, all events that include a swim segment should be non-competitive. That takes us through to 6 September, with the rationale being that entrants might not have had the chance nor inspiration to train. Organisers are being urged to offer an alternative to anyone apprehensive of the swim. It could be a shorter swim, a duathlon… it could be a deferral to 2021.
Whether athletes temper their efforts to ‘non-competitive’ remains to be seen. As with so much of the pandemic protocols, it relies on public buy-in. “Hopefully noone is that stupid to push themselves to the limit ‘do a Jonny Brownlee’ and collapse,” Hamilton says. “If it happens there will be a medical team, but it
“WHILE TRI IS ALREADY RENOWNED FOR ITS LENGTHY KIT LIST, ADDITIONAL DRINKS AND SNACKS SHOULD BE SUPPLEMENTED BY HAND SANITISER”
certainly won’t be down to the volunteers to pick them up.”
A DNA OF BELONGING
The re-envisioned swim should be familiar for those used to Ironman’s now embedded low-key rolling start procedures. Athletes enter the water one at a time. The difference now is that at least a 2m gap should be maintained, even when swimming. It means drafting on the feet of a faster competitor is prohibited, although this may prove tricky to enforce.
Hamilton thinks athletes entering the water in staggered procession can work, but estimates the day might stretch “25 per cent” longer. That’d be a clear issue for iron-distance races with 17-hour cut-off times, but could be mitigated by reduced numbers. For the bike leg, entrants should make provisions to carry requisite bottles and race in a non-drafting format at least 10m apart, and 12m for middle distance and above. Drafting violations will see time added at the end, as stand-down penalty boxes are now banished.
British Triathlon advises against aid stations, accepting that if they’re required, they should be spread out. “As we get back to racing, we’ll get an understanding that aid stations aren’t the filthy disease-ridden areas we expect,” Hamilton says, positing 10 tables spread 3m apart that could see athletes pick up what they need, with stock replenished by the crew.
“We did it at the Cambridge Half Marathon with 15,000 runners this year [just before the country went into lockdown], and the athletes had to grab their own cups of water,” he adds. “It worked out fine.” There’s an acceptance that athletes can’t be entirely selfsufficient. “We need to provide back-up in case it’s a hot day or someone has a meltdown and loses all their nutrition.”
Both the finish chute and the event village are where the lack of buzz could really hit home. “People like being at large events because there’s camaraderie, a DNA of belonging,” Lunt says. “Take that away and you might as well do a time trial on your own and send your results in.” He also points out that traders will be far less keen to pitch up if athlete numbers are down and spectators a no-show.
While it’s always nice to finish strong, triathletes should prioritise keeping their hamstrings loose enough to bend down and remove their own timing chip. Know what size tee-shirt you want too, as you won’t be thanked for sifting through until you find one that fits. Finally, the proviso to all of this is that while the pandemic continues to wane in the UK, any local lockdowns, such as the one enforced in Leicester, would see an immediate block on events in the vicinity.
If all this change is too ‘new normal’ for you, how long before we can return to the cut and thrust racing of pre-pandemic times? Unfortunately, there’s no simple answer to that. Triathlons are mandated to have a ‘socially distanced group of one’ for as long as the government deems social distancing necessary. Instead, perhaps we must reflect that many of us bought into tri in the first place because we wanted a solo pursuit and the accountability that comes with it. It’s never been more solo, and the need to be accountable has probably never been greater.