Interesting news finally announced

November 6th, 2009 | by Mac |

Read article here.

Better get FAST if you want to race professionally. I really like this and feel this will help legitimize the sport on a professional level. The talent of the pro field will be VERY high and you will basically have to finish top 3 to go to Kona. Bring it on!

  1. One Response to “Interesting news finally announced”

  2. By Vance on Nov 23, 2009 | Reply

    Mac,

    I couldn’t disagree more. If anything, it un-legitimizes the sport on a professional level. Do you see NFL, NBA, MLB players, or Tour riders paying a fee? Hell, even pro golfers don’t have to pay a fee to a tournament, that is what their PGA card is for.

    Ironman says they now have drug testing. We have yet to see any real evidence of that, or how it will be run. This whole “random drug testing” program is not even that. You don’t have to enter the pool of randomly tested athletes until you want to, meaning it’s not random at all, since you control the timing. We don’t even know how they plan to enforce knowing our whereabouts. We don’t know how many total random tests will be done, so we know what we’re paying for.

    Prize money being limited to those within 5% of the winner? Ok, fine. But why not re-distribute that money to those guys who do finish in that 5%, to help legitimize their performances? If you’re a female, are you going to even show up to the same race as Chrissie? Stupid to do that.

    Limiting the Kona field to a more elite level pro? Sure, ok. But when a pro pays to go, just like an age-grouper, why does this change need to happen? They don’t get more money because of it.

    Ironman is owned by a private equity firm, and they don’t know squat about the sport, but are making the decisions. They know accounting, and they are trying to save a few bucks. They made all these decisions without any input from the athletes. Poor.

    How about what some of the top pro’s bring to the table? How about the excitement of the race? One of the big things we’re told is so great about the sport is that age-groupers get to toe the water with the pro’s. Does that suddenly have no value? Does that suddenly mean I should pay $750? Plus $100 USAT elite license fee, plus $45 Active.com fee, meaning $900 total???

    I could go on and on, but my hope is that with the newly establish professional’s association, we can act more as a group and change the sport to really legitimize professionals.

    Vance

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