As a product, triathlon is built around two fundamentals. For the sport to grow and thrive, it needs its stars (the athletes) and a stage for them to perform upon. Everything else is largely tangential.
For years now, short distance athletes have torn up the WTCS and produced sensational performances, not least in the most recent WTCS Final in Abu Dhabi.
Their stage, though, is something that will require careful planning and consideration in the coming years.
There are races on the WTCS circuit, such as Hamburg and Yokohama, that have been fixtures in the Series and bring an element of tradition to what is otherwise a young sport. The crowds, spectacle and heritage in Hamburg in particular make it a key venue for World Triathlon going forward.
When it comes to adding new venues, however, the strategy seems a little more mixed.
In part this is due to the obvious constraints on host cities, such as creating space for the courses by restricting traffic and paying the hosting costs imposed by World Triathlon. Such constraints have not really concerned locations such as Abu Dhabi which is why it has been a regular venue on the circuit in the last decade despite being home to a climate that is rarely favourable to triathlon and therefore requires races to be held in March or November.
On a strategic level, World Triathlon appears to prioritise taking races to the home countries of the sport’s biggest names. Think WTCS Leeds for the Brownlees, WTCS Bermuda for Flora Duffy, the Bergen World Cup for Kristian Blummenfelt and the Norwegian contingent. Even the 2023 WTCS Final in Pontevedra has an athlete connection as the home of Javier Gomez Noya.
On the one hand it makes sense for the governing body to capitalise on the biggest names in the sport and take races to their homes. After all, it ensures strong crowd turnout on the day which is an important part of the television spectacle. The presence of local favourites also often incentivises some cities to bid to host races in the first place.
On the other hand, it speaks to a lack of long-term strategy with regards to growing the sport. Waiting for big names to emerge and then taking the sport to their home countries is a reactive approach and does not indicate planning for the future. It capitalises on a short-term popularity bump but chases an audience that might not be there once the home favourite moves on.
By way of example, British Triathlon and Triathlon England memberships went down in 2021 compared to 2020. These numbers are taken from the 2020 and 2021 Annual Reports of British Triathlon which can be read here and here.
We are only talking about a drop of a couple of hundred members which does not sound a lot, however a decline from 2020, which had far fewer triathlon opportunities to the public than 2021, is not a good trend. It also does not even account for the thousands of members that dropped off from 2019 to 2020.
This suggests that being home to a WTCS race has not ensured a continued and sustainable growth of the sport in the country.
Drops in membership are only one measurement and are itself can be influenced by a range of factors. Nevertheless, years of hosting a home WTCS race with local favourites routinely earning medals in front of bumper crowds has failed to prevent a drop in British triathlon participation.
Nor is the British WTCS race staying in Leeds. Instead it is moving to Sunderland, a shift that comes at a time when local stars Alistair and Jonathan Brownlee are no longer regularly at the front of the field.
That is not to say that local stars don’t matter. Both Hamburg and Yokohama are regularly boosted by local favourites. But sometimes the stage is more important. In tennis, the French Open has endured as a highlight of the tennis calendar despite a prolonged absence of French challengers. Indeed, there is a culture and tradition to the event that acts as a selling point.
One additional point to note is that it is now mid-December and the WTCS calendar for 2023 has not been fully confirmed (or at least does not appear on World Triathlon’s Events page). With the season starting in less than 12 weeks, this suggests that World Triathlon have had some difficulty in finding locations for 2023. Something in their current approach, then, might not be working.
Triathlon is not (yet) football or Formula 1. It cannot afford to pick and choose locations and trust the audience will be there regardless.
Instead, the goal could be to identify where the sport needs to go to grow, and then take it there for a decade and beyond. Races like Hamburg, where time has been given for a tradition to grow, represent a blueprint going forward.
That blueprint is finding the best available courses and using them consistently for years so traditions can develop. In doing so, audiences can also build their expectations of upcoming seasons, rather than watching races at locations like Rotterdam and Lausanne that appear in the WTCS infrequently and are left to fade away.
Such locations should not be difficult to find for an international governing body with access to TV data, online search data and their own statistical analyses.
There is not a perfect way to guarantee growth. However traditions in sports matter and the mythos that surrounds an event becomes a part of its lustre.
World Triathlon does not need to chase the homes of its stars. Rather, it needs to focus on building them a grander stage.
