Mind the gender gap: Do women get an equal experience in triathlon?

A report published at the end of last year offered some hard-hitting truths when it comes to gender equality in triathlon. But having shaken the tri world awake, the two organisations behind the survey have already ushered in some incredible changes. Here’s how, as well as a look at the work still to be done…

In December 2024, a report was released by two organisations, SheRACES and Women in Tri UK, entitled ‘Closing the gender gap: tackling the underrepresentation of women in triathlon’. The results and testimony from over 900 female triathletes, who contributed to the survey and shared their real-life experiences of events in the UK and around the world, shocked the global tri community.

The statistics, such as “only 3% of athletes reported neither being deterred from entering a race (for reasons other than cost), nor experiencing inequitable provision as a woman”, were stark. Others, while less surprising, still made for uncomfortable reading – “67% of women are put off entering triathlon events due to the cost” and “57% of respondents have experienced insufficient toilet provisions at races”.

Then there was this – 28% of female triathletes in the survey reported having experienced physical or verbal harassment at a race. Just read that again. Out of 900 women that equals 252. Almost a third.

The report quoted women who had suffered verbal harassment, such as being shouted at to move, comments about their body, clothing or ability, and race marshals and other participants making inappropriate or sexual comments. Physical harassment and abuse included being pushed and shoved, inappropriate and unwanted touching/hugging, and dangerously close overtaking when cycling. One respondent even described being spat at during the run by a male competitor.

In short, the 63-page report had a clear message – the female experience in triathlon needed to change and, in order for the sport to thrive and grow, it needed to change now. But where to start? The report (which can be downloaded in full at sheraces.com) highlighted so many different areas where the sport was falling short for women at all levels.

As well as the shocking level of inappropriate behaviour taking place, which we will return to later, on a more logistical level there was a huge list of ‘barriers’ to entry, such as the high cost of race entry and kit, lack of logistical information, no option to defer entry for pregnancy, daunting cut-off times, unisex t-shirts in goody bags that are not designed for the female body, the lack of private changing, and no female-only wave or race options.

What the women behind the survey and report want to make clear here, though, is that a lot of work is already being done, and had been going on for years behind the scenes.

“I’ve been doing a lot of advocacy with events for many, many years, raising awareness with things like not having period products or snapping swim caps due to my afro hair,” explains Bianca Fernandez-Clark, founder and chair of Women in Tri UK. “We have so many success stories from events before the report was published.”

Women in Tri UK has an Event Partnerships Scheme, which any event can join and which already had a huge sign-up. “We work with events end-to-end providing bespoke advice, to help make races better for women and beginners. It’s something we’ve always done, but now with a proper structure – plus, our event partners wanted (and deserve!) recognition for the work they’re doing.

“Each event can use our logo on their website to say that they’re an official partner to us and that means that they have intentional action around increasing women’s participation.

“We have extensive guidelines, but we will go to an event and chat to them about say how is the swim managed. That’s what we’ve been doing for years, but now we’re going to new events. So a lot is work we’ve already been doing, based on the deep feedback that we’ve had from the community.”

Outlaw events have been a partner of Women in Tri UK for several years, and they continue to work together to implement change. “Their [SheRACES and Women in Tri UK] insights have helped us implement meaningful changes that go beyond the standard commitments,” explains Lia Hamilton from Wasserman, who run the Outlaw events. “For example, introducing modesty-friendly changing areas has led to a huge increase in participation from Muslim women.”

• The UK’s best iron-distance triathlons

Implementing change

Cost continues to be a huge barrier to participation, for both genders, but several races, including Outlaw, now offer payment plans, discounted entry for clubs and early-bird price structuring to help spread the cost.

“The idea of a ‘no-frills’ entry is an interesting one, too,” adds Hamilton, “particularly for athletes who already have the kit or prefer a more sustainable approach, and it’s something we’re continuing to keep in mind. Affordability and accessibility are key to growing the sport, and we’re always looking for ways to support that.”

ATW Events is another partner who have adopted many of the suggestions provided by Women in Tri UK, such as enhancing their pre-race information and FAQs and providing clearer details on logistics and expected finish times.

“We’ve also introduced female-only start waves and, where feasible, rolling starts to provide a more comfortable race environment,” says managing director James Shipley. “Our extensive deferral policy allows any participant to defer up to 48 hours before the event for any reason, including pregnancy, without any questions asked. Additionally, all our sprint and standard-distance races have no cut-off times.

Some changes, of course, are easier to implement than others. “One of my athletes raced an aquathlon in France and she was the third female finisher and they did not have medals for the women,” recalls British Triathlon coach and Women in Tri UK advisor Jo Watkinson. “They only had medals for first, second and third, which inevitably were all men. It’s a very, very low cost to have two sets of medals, that’s a very easy-to-manage change.

“Things that change the whole logistical layout of your transition, say getting a portable loo into transition, is going to be logistically very difficult,” says Watkinson. “But things like the medals or sourcing female fit T-shirts rather than unisex T-shirts are easy and that shows they’re thinking about their female participants.”

This is all commercial

Back in 2022, SheRACES conducted the first large-scale survey into female experiences in road and trail run races. Over 2,000 women took part, and from the results, guidelines were developed for race organisers to use to become more inclusive.

“When we worked with Threshold Sports last year on the 50:50 project, we showed that a 1.5% increase in event costs to implement these guidelines resulted in 98% more women on the startline,” says founder of SheRACES Sophie Power.

“And the number of men doubled, it was a more attractive race to sign up to. It’s a kind of double bonus that the event is going to make more money and women get a better experience to race. Because this is all commercial. If you’ve got very few women on the start line and you want to grow your events the best thing to do is get more women.”

SheRACES then switched their attention to triathlon, writing the tri-specific guidelines that outline best practice for all events to be inclusive to women, which, says Power, “makes triathlon better for everyone – men benefit from steps towards inclusion too”.

Triathlons that meet the minimum nine commitments for female-inclusive races can take the additional step of becoming SheRACES accredited, highlighting their commitment to getting more women to the start line and giving them a good experience when they get there.

Shocking testimonies

As with any report it’s hard to get a real feel for the ‘experience’ of those who contributed from a set of emotionless statistics, so it was the first-person accounts of abusive and inappropriate behaviour during races that really caught people’s attention.

“Coming out of the swim at London Tri a couple of years ago,” recalls Watkinson, “I had a man physically climb over me because I was waiting for the person in front to get themselves onto the pontoon. And the guy behind me used me as a ladder. I don’t care if I’m a man or a woman, no one should be using another human as a ladder.”

“I had a terrible experience at Challenge Roth last year,” adds Fernandez-Clark. “A man would not stop running literally next to me, for 5km, and on a section of the canal that’s quite lonely, there was nobody. I would speed up and he’d speed up with me. I’d slow down and he’d slow down. I’d take a walk break, nothing would get him out of my way until I stopped and pretended to do my shoelaces so he would just piss off.

“I’m from the Dominican Republic, I know crime, so I’m not spooked easily and I was so spooked because you’re not seeing anyone until the aid stations every 5km. He just wrecked my race because I couldn’t even do my own effort, I was just so worried about this man.”

“I have validated a lot of experiences in triathlon that I thought were okay and normal, and ‘this is just triathlon racing’,” Fernandez-Clark continues. “And it wasn’t until other women said, ‘no, this is not okay’. So when I’ve experienced very dangerous close passing on the bike I never reported that. Or even considered it a form of harassment. So a code of conduct is something we ask all of our partners to implement.”

“What we’re questioning is, does our sport have to look that way?”, says Power. “Is it because it’s been allowed to happen? Is it because historically we’ve had a majority of men on the start line? And can we create a new form of the sport that is not just inclusive to women but inclusive to male athletes as well?”

The long-distance experience

Ironman received widespread consternation in spring when it announced changes to its world champs’ qualifying system. But then Women in Tri UK stepped in…

Female participation in triathlon is 32% overall in the UK (source: Triathlon Industry Association), but this number drops dramatically as the distance increases, with men outnumbering women by more than 4:1 at Ironman events globally.

Back in April, the news broke that the Ironman World Champs would, from 2026, be returning to its original one-day format in Kona, Hawaii, meaning men and women would once again be sharing the stage rather than having two separate race days.

The news was met with a mixed response. On the pro side, it was warmly received, with many women relishing the return to racing alongside the men. “I missed the feeling of being part of something bigger,” posted 2023 champ Lucy Charles-Barclay on her Instagram account.

But what about the age-groupers? Ironman had believed that the split-location format “would lead to greater exposure for all and more women participating in the sport of triathlon.”

However, according to Ironman, “it did not inspire more women to enter the sport, and did not increase the frequency of racing among women. In fact, the split-format unexpectedly resulted in more women leaving the sport after completing the Ironman World Championship.”

One area that they’re improving for 2026, and is something the survey also touched on, was giving equal coverage to the men’s and women’s races.

Back in April, Ironman also announced that while the elite men and women would have an equal number of starting places, the age-group field would not, with slots instead being awarded “mainly proportionately”, so more would be available to the most popular categories, e.g. 40-44 men. The news was disheartening to Fernandez-Clark and Power.

However, at the start of July, Ironman, having taken the findings of Women in Tri UK into account – which demonstrated how proportional allocation models can unintentionally penalise high-performing women due to lower participation numbers – announced that it would be adopting a new age-group performance-based qualification process for the Ironman and 70.3 World Champs. You can read the full news story on this here.

“We’re pleased to see Ironman take this important step forward,” said Fernandez-Clark. “We hope this marks the beginning of a long-term collaboration to drive more equitable outcomes across the sport.”

Changing mindsets

Unlike other barriers to entry or continuation in the sport, there’s not a simple solution here. Or at least not a quick one. So how do you go about changing a person’s mindset? And furthermore, how do you make a grown adult understand what is and isn’t acceptable behaviour?

“You can’t control who turns up at your event and what they do,” admits Power. “And it’s how you make that clear as to what’s acceptable and what’s not, when people have been doing sport for a long time. We’ve done a huge piece of work with Ourea Events, who have phenomenal safeguarding policies and have really developed that to understand how do we create that culture of respect between athletes?

And if there are issues, how are they raised. There are ways to make the sport better and safer, and that’s where British Triathlon really engaged brilliantly in sending the survey out.”

British Triathlon was, like the rest of the triathlon community, taken aback by the results. “The survey didn’t represent what we understood women to be experiencing in our sport and the concerns raised by women completing this survey had not been shared with us,” says British Triathlon’s CEO Ruth Daniels.

“We take a zero-tolerance approach to misogynistic behaviour at events or anywhere else in our sport and so one of the areas we identified where we could improve is in the routes available for people to report this kind of behaviour.

“We would always encourage women to raise issues at the time with technical officials or event directors. We also appreciate many women would not feel comfortable doing this and so encourage people to contact us via the [email protected] email address or complete the form on our website.”

More specifically, British Triathlon has launched anonymous reporting via a QR code, so that athletes can report any concerns, “including misogynistic behaviour and discrimination of any type”.

The QR code links directly to a form where people can share their experience or concern confidentially. “We will be sharing this widely to encourage people to make us aware of these concerns and responses will be managed by our British Triathlon sports integrity team,” says Daniels.

“Our current British Triathlon’s Code of Ethics sets out the standards of behaviour we would expect from anyone taking part in our sport,” adds Daniels. “We do have plans to review the Code later this year, alongside our overall organisational values, with the involvement of the triathlon community – we want this to be shaped and owned by them.”

The guidelines

SheRACES have put together a set of guidelines for all race organisers to help support female athletes. The full, completely free, document can be found on sheraces.com and includes suggestions such as:

• Include more diverse marketing imagery
• Ensuring things like pregnancy deferrals are easy to find on race websites
• Provide very clear and comprehensive logistical information about the race
• Introducing more generous cut-off times
• Providing sanitary products in toilets
• Offering a female-only wave
• Put strict safeguarding protocols in place outlining expected behaviour, as well as penalties for those who exhibit poor behaviour – which must be followed through on
• Ensure that all participants have space on the start line with clear visibility
• Prize money, awards and post-race celebrations should be equal for men and women, with the same size podium and same number of age-group categories

Putting policies in place

Power believes British Triathlon can go further: “We think every race should have a safeguarding policy and an anti-harassment policy if they’re going to get a licence.

“But it can’t be just a policy, people need to be aware of the policy and that things will happen if you breach it. And that women, and men, who had issues know that their concerns will be listened to and addressed. It’s a whole 360° that needs to happen. The research has brought awareness to the fact that it [harassment policy] needs to be in place.

“After all, triathlon is an amazing sport and everyone should have the opportunity to take part without fear and have a joyous day, and so many women have had days that are not joyous, and not because of their own athletic ability but because of other athlete behaviour.

“That was the big step back [with the results of the survey] in that there’s an awful lot of work to do. There were a small number of experienced athletes that said ‘don’t complain, we don’t need extra help’, and I think reframing this as it’s not extra help to have period products.

“It’s not extra help to have a harassment policy, it’s not extra help to have proper facilities and to have our race equally valued. And I think for women to think that it’s cheating or we’re weaker because we want that, we’re only asking for the race to be equally designed for us as it is for men. And it’s something that we are paying our entry fee for and we’re entitled to.”

First steps

With so many initiatives already in place, what else would SheRACES and Women in Tri UK like to see being implemented?

“We’d like to see more triathlons openly committing to the guidelines,” says Power. “And firming up the accreditation which we know attracts women. We know that over 80% of women are more likely to sign up for a race that openly commits to the guidelines.

“Maybe event organisers can’t make all the changes but we get the period products in, or they’re aware of small things like language, like imagery – it’ll often be things they just haven’t thought of before. And once you see imagery that’s wrong, you can’t unsee it. If every homepage is all the fast men it’s so off-putting.

“Some of the great feedback has been from male athletes who’ve heard these things said to women and they’ve not intervened. Or they’ve seen aggressive passing on the bike but not done anything. And they’ve said ‘we’re going to call it out’, and that’s so powerful.”

For Watkinson, she’s been encouraged by her fellow coaches’ response to the results. “A lot of the male coaches weren’t aware that this was the experience of female athletes. And so getting those results out in front of male coaches and male participants has really helped.

“And now it’s trying to filter that message so it then goes back into the clubs. And at the tri club where I coach, the men have started calling the men out. So when they’re trying to overtake in a small swim lane because the woman in front is faster than them, and the other guys are like, ‘dude what you’re doing?’ I love seeing that. That is what actually I think will generate change in the harder-to-reach section of male triathlon society.

“Because I would also bet that the guy that used me as a ladder probably isn’t going to read this article. So how can the media create articles, information in a way that is palatable to the male who needs to be aware that their bullying behaviour, regardless of whether it’s a male or a female that they are overtaking too closely, is still unacceptable behaviour?

“How can we raise the standard of what athletes are doing when they are racing and training? The media essentially needs to be an ally, using their platform to educate males in the sport on what’s okay and what isn’t.”

“Really small things can make a huge difference and that’s what we’re trying to get across,” concludes Power. “There’s a huge opportunity to get more women into triathlon and really safeguard the future of the sport. Races want to give their athletes a great experience and women want to be on startlines. And so all we’re trying to do is ask the right questions and make some simple changes to grow the sport.”

If you’re been affected by any of the issues raised in this article and would like more information on how to speak out, head over to SheRACES or Women in Tri UK, or British Triathlon.