WTC has killed IronKids - Boo!

William Jenks

Very disappointing announcement this morning that IronKids triathlons are dead.  Instead, they are having "inclusive fun runs" at most of their events.

http://ironkids.com

If you were in the midwest, these were awesome...not too expensive...good quality races...and they treated you right.  There were so many races in the midwest because of the HyVee sponsorship, so I could understand if they cut back on a few of those...but to lose the whole series (and its annual championship event) is really sad.  My kids' swim team was talking about doing one of them just for a fun event for the swimmers this year.  It was that kind of thing...$50 or less to enter and a good quality race.

Perhaps there is a way to let them know if you feel the same way I do.  If you figure one out, please let me know

 

Darren Freeman

In NJ there has been a significant reduction in registration across many of the smaller events in the area. So much so, races are getting cancelled and starting to trade ownership or dropping off the map all together because there are so many race companies competing for the available dollars that there isn't enough to go around.

In discussions with friends and other people it seems we all agree that the sport has grown too quickly and is hitting a dry period as people have gotten what they wanted out of the sport for the time being at the local level. I have many friends who have decided not to sign up for races this year at the local level or have cut back on the number of races they have done from previous years.

Paul Hough

Obviously the profit isn't there. I assumed these were an investment in the future, but Providence Equity needs a return now. I keep wondering when they are going to sell WTC. Meanwhile, there are LOTS of opportunities to pay big bucks to run through the mud, have corn starch thrown on your white t-shirt, have foam sprayed on you, renew your wedding vows during the run, and/or any other thing they can think of to charge a premium.

William Jenks

For the short term, there has been clarification on the Hy-Vee Ironkids FB page (which I assume will have to change names), the Ironkids FB page, and the hy-veeironkids.com web page that all seem to point in the direction that at least the HyVee sponsored events will continue in some fashion of this year. So that, at least, is a plus. We await details.

This does strike me, however, as another instance in which initial WTC communication was terrible...even if they make it up in the end. How hard would it have been for them to wait a week and announce the transfer of the series to HyVee and their alternative fun runs at the same time? Didn't we go through this kind of lousy PR with them several times in the not-too-distant past?