On the June the 8th the ITU World Championship race will take place.
I'll be going over there and cheering hard for the Canadians but it's a damn shame that I won't be able to cheer for at least five of my friends and athletes who had earned a spot in the race. In the end they all felt the $825 it was going to cost them to race was simply too much and in at least two cases, the decision not to race was based on principal and not their financial state.
There is no doubt that holding a race in downtown Vancouver must be an expensive affair but I've never heard of that kind of a fee. Hawaii is almost half the price.
Here's the breakdown:
Race entry $300 (I'm told a record in short course history)
Mandatory Team Kit: $250 that doesn't include the
Orca race uniform which is: $150 Orca is suppose to be a sponsor of the event. Doesn't sound like much of a sponsorship.
Something called a Team Fee: $125
That's $825.
And here's an interesting little tidbit:
In 2006 an ITU congress passed a resolution to protect athletes from unscrupulous race organizers - World Championship entry fees would not exceed $200 but a funny thing happened on the way to Vancouver (home of the ITU) the resolution was suddenly waived and the figure was changed to 200 Euros! The reason given was the huge impact the declining US dollar had on the Canadian dollar. Wow.
True evil is not in the act but the rationalization of it after.
So many people dropped out of the race the organizers are now selling the multitude of vacancies. Buyers must pay all the above fees plus a $150 processing fee and they're in the World Championships.
I actually considered doing just that but it didn't feel right. It's my opinion that anyone who buys their way into the race should be differentiated from those who earned there way there (a black arm band with a white dollar sign would be good) I was lead to understand that the uniform would have no such distinctions. Rather than just take rumour as truth I emailed Tri Canada and asked them about this obvious issue. They didn't respond so I didn't enter.
The World Championships will go off on June the 8th but how many of the athletes there will be the best from around the world?
One thing you can know for sure - those racing will not be from wrong of the tracks. Good to keep the riff raff out.
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3 comments:
That is brutal!! It would be interesting to know what the organizers of the event get paid and where the sponsorship dollars go. At the very least, give a qualified athlete a jersey to wear on race day. $150 for a team outfit...basically retail price. I guess cutting the funding to long course athletes didn't help out the ITU athletes much!!
Clint,
Interestingly enough, I emailed Tri-Can with a very detailed explanation of my "polite" decline of race invite given my qualifying by winning provincials AG last September. I have proposed my participation in a focus group with Tri-Can for what athletes want from their national association duly noting a FREE RIDE is not it, but a FAIR ride is. No reply.
The rub is you pay the $125 "administration fee" upon qualifying. No refundable. Then, they come at you with the remaining $700 in fees.
AND, this is the first year with the Sprint race as a new revenue stream.
I will stick to Ironman racing where we are treating, for $500 odd, like rock stars for a day at least.
Too bad, Vancouver is an amazing place to race.
Rhys
Thanks for pointing that out, Rhys. I think many people were equally offended by that. I would love to be behind the closed doors where those in power rationalized that decision. True evil is not in the action but in the rationalization of it after.
These people should be ashamed of themselves.
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