While the PTO has consistently struggled to round out its own race calendar in recent years and even had to cut short the prestigious and grandly announced T100 series this year, it is now announcing a partnership of no less than twelve years with World Triathlon. This news is all the more striking because the future of the PTO does not seem to be that stable and there has been speculation for some time about the viability of the organization, all the more so because for years it has been spending far more money than it’s earning.
That being said, World Triathlon apparently sees fit to announce a long-term partnership with the PTO. The two organizations have been working together since last year and are now expanding their ‘commercial partnership’.
The 12-year agreement is thus valid until 2036 and should include an “Official World Championship Tour of Long Distance Triathlon,” as well as anti-doping rules and deals on sponsorship and TV broadcasts. Certainly that Official World Championship Tour of Long Distance Triathlon is an interesting one, especially since World Triathlon is increasingly seeing interest in their Long Distance World Championships decline. The World Championships Multisports that World Triathlon organizes are also losing interest every year, both from professional athletes themselves and triathlon fans worldwide.
For Long Distance championships, fans look much more to Ironman and, to a slightly lesser extent, Challenge Family. The same goes for pro athletes: the PTO was forced to hand out a lot of wildcards this season, because the so-called PTO top twenty athletes more than once did not attend the races, because it did not fit into their schedule and because they chose other races.
