British Triathlon has released a statement confirming that there'll be no World Triathlon Championship Series (WTCS) event in the UK for 2024.
The statement reads: "The costs of hosting WTCS races has been escalating for several years.
"Following a detailed feasibility process and in consultation with all event staging partners, the challenging economic climate has meant that it would not be financially viable for the event to take place in 2024, despite the considerable financial and value in kind commitment from Leeds City Council and UK Sport."
While this year's British WTCS race is set to take place in Sunderland next weekend, the plan was always for it to move back to Leeds in 2024. However, due to escalating costs and a tough commercial environment, this is now unable to happen.
Instead, the money that would have gone toward putting on the race will instead be invested in "other areas of the organisation's activity", says British Triathlon's media representative, "all of which has become much more expensive due to inflation and other related economic conditions".
One thing to note, however, is that the World Triathlon Para Series event in Swansea will be unaffected and will once again take place there next year.
A possible return for 2025?
The official statement went on to say: "Leeds has been a great host of WTCS events for many years and is synonymous with triathlon as the training centre for several of British Triathlon’s World Class Programme athletes.
"It is also a key partner in British Triathlon’s efforts to grow swim, bike and run amongst underrepresented communities.
"Hosting major events remains a part of British Triathlon’s strategy, and the organisation is working with its partners, including Leeds City Council and UK Sport, to explore different ways to enable a return of a WTCS event in future years."
The news was met with disappointment on social media, with many triathletes commenting with sad face emojis, while former pro triathlete Tim Don responded simply by saying, "WOW".
Asked about a return to the UK for the series in 2025, British Triathlon said: "We want to work with World Triathlon to explore a better model. We will also work with other partners, including UK Sport, host cities and others to find other ways to bring the world’s best triathletes to Great Britain again in the future...
"We would love to see the world’s best triathletes and paratriathletes race in Great Britain every year and as we have said, will explore other models to make this feasible."
Top image credit: Ryan Sosna-Bowd/Getty Images
