Challenge Wanaka opts to drop its fulllength race
CHALLENGE Wanaka has decided to aim for quality over quantity.
New Zealand’s largest triathlon festival has cut its fulllength 226km race, allowing it to focus on building the halfdistance and aquabike races into world class events.
The elite section of the fulllength race had been cut in this year’s race in February and received a positive response.
A strong field assembled for this year’s elite half event and it was hoped the other grades would follow a similar trend.
Agegroups, in particular, were becoming harder to attract to the full distance race and the focus would go on raising the quality of the athletes’ experience in the shorter race.
‘‘The Challenge Wanaka Half has grown over the eight years it has been running to become our main event that this year saw the best field of professional athletes ever assembled for a middle distance race in New Zealand,’’ race director Bill Roxburgh said.
‘‘So we want to put our time and energy into the Challenge Wanaka Half and aquabike to make them internationally recognised events with a real focus on the age group athletes, giving them the best quality time possible while they are in Wanaka.’’
The Challenge Wanaka Half has doubled as the national middle distance triathlon championships twice, while the aquabike was this year’s national championship event.
It was working with Triathlon New Zealand to see that continue, although it would alternate with the North Island.
The advantage in being a national championship event was that it gave athletes a chance to qualify for a spot in ITU World Championship events.
Challenge Wanaka is internationally recognised as the world’s most scenic triathlon and injects $4 million into the local economy.
Cutting the full event would also cut disruption in the town, as road closures would end earlier.
The 2019 event is set to take place on February 16.