Recent Posts
I have always been of the opinion that a sport has entered the big league when it is able to support its professional athletes with the means to make a living from competing. While triathlon was built on mass participation, there is a need to add some depth to the opportunities for the top echelon of professional athletes, who dedicate themselves full time to compete at that level.
A lot of people — myself included — thought the Professional Triathletes Organisation at its outset was an audacious undertaking, but I think the direction is the right one to go in.
Sam Renouf is an experienced CEO within the sports space. He was a former athlete himself, and I’m a big fan of athletes being involved in business. I think they come with a specific mindset, hard work ethic and they believe anything is possible, which in the business environment is a great culture. They hold a true entrepreneurial drive in that sense. In sport, where nothing is guaranteed — one week you win one week, you lose — you’re much more open-minded to start-ups and the direction you need to take them. And I think Sam brings that to the PTO.
Our alignment with the PTO is in building the professional arm of the sport and shift it from a participation sport to a spectator sport, to make it interesting and give it more commercial viability. That requires new formats for races, and initiatives like Sub7 Sub8 for the professionals that can be packaged in an entertaining way for broadcast. Equally important is the long-form storytelling of our athletes journey’s to get the public engaged as fans and inspire the next wave of elite athletes.
The professional side of the sport is why I’ve delivered Super League Triathlon, why I built the Bahrain Endurance 13 team, and it’s why we’re engaged with the Pho3nix Foundation in activities that develop young talent.
I’ve always been fascinated by the mindset and the physicality of what it takes to be exceptional in any sport. What got me into the sport in the first place was aspiring to be like my idols who were doing the sport and were 10 or 15 years older than me; I think this is still what drives interest and engagement among younger people.
World Triathlon is an Olympic, federation-driven model, and they do a great job in keeping kids on an Olympic path. But beyond that and prior to Super League Triathlon on the short-course side and the PTO on the long-course side, there just wasn’t much growth in the way of supporting professional athletes.
So we are completing the circle from a high-performance perspective. Pho3nix Foundation aims to inspire and sow the seeds for the next generation of young, talented stars to come through. They feed into World Triathlon and Super League Triathlon racing, and they can age into a long-course career with the opportunities the PTO presents.
I’m a big supporter of the PTO as an organisation and how it has given professional triathletes a sense of ownership over the direction of their sport. The PTO and the Sub7 and Sub8 Project by the Pho3nix Foundation share a desire to shine a spotlight on the professional side of the sport, and I am confident this partnership will lead to bigger and better things for triathlon.
Loading...