After the Asian Open, European Open and US Open, the PTO will not host a fourth race this year. As a result the Collins Cup will not take place this year, even though Marrakesh was named earlier as this year’s venue for the Collins Cup. That there will not be a fourth PTO-race this year is evident from a mailing sent by the PTO to professional athletes and which you can read below:
We hope your season is going well and you are enjoying racing being back in full-swing for 2023.
As mentioned in earlier communications, we are now in a position to give you a brief update on plans and important dates for 2023 and beyond.
4th PTO Tour Event – 2023
We have made the difficult decision not to move ahead with a 4th event on the PTO Tour for 2023, including The Collins Cup. Timing and logistics did not allow for us to deliver the event to the high standards we require, especially given the scale of our broadcast production. As has been shared before, our intention is that the majority of PTO events will take place over multiple days, with independent races for Pro Men and Pro Women as well as entirely separate opportunities for age groupers to race. While this ensures the best ‘product’ it does have a bigger operational impact on our host cities compared to ‘normal’ single day (or morning) event. Our focus now turns to ensuring we deliver to these high standards with the PTO US Open in Milwaukee and the PTO Asian Open in Singapore.
PTO Tour 2024
As outlined in Chris Kermode’s (PTO Chairman) letter earlier in the year, we believe for the professional sport to reach its potential, it needs to evolve from a fragmented calendar to a ‘season long narrative’ that can provide fans, future fans and our broadcast partners with consistent opportunities to see the top athletes racing head-to-head.
To support creating a more consistent calendar, the PTO will evolve its membership agreements to provide travel support and marketing contracts to the highest ranked athletes at PTO Tour events. Selection for these agreements will be based on your PTO Ranking – so there is no need to do anything different or change your current racing plans – just perform to your potential as a professional. We will use two ranking selection dates for this: August 21st and December 10th (accounting for the final rankings event of 2023 – which is Challenge Salinas) and share more information nearer the time.
We also want to make it easier for everyone to plan their seasons so will be aiming to announce the full calendar, including dates, locations and qualifications in October of 2023.
Athletes
As the integral part of the PTO, we will also continue to work on ways to engage, develop, and support the full Athlete Membership and recognise the importance of this to help grow the organisation as a whole.
All the best for your upcoming races.
