World Triathlon president Antonio Arimany on its alliance with the PTO, Olympic expansion ambitions and returning to London in 2026.
After a few years of flux characterised by challenger leagues and competitions sprouting up at a dizzying pace, it feels like consolidation is in the air in the sports industry.
Golf awaits the consummation of a long-mooted union between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf, while just last week, the Hexagon Cup’s success as a standalone event saw it embraced by the International Padel Federation and beefed up into a global series.
In triathlon, meanwhile, the sport’s world governing body has thrown its lot in with the Professional Triathletes Organisation, a recognition that the billionaire-backed and part athlete-owned pro tour has commercialised the sport in just a few years in a way that World Triathlon is ill-suited to doing.
The move will create a multi-distance Triathlon World Tour from 2027, with World Triathlon Championship Series events adopting the vocabulary of the PTO’s T100 Tour and rebranded as T50 races. The PTO will sell the whole package, including a new Challenger feeder series, to sponsors and broadcasters, as it has with its own events.
“It is a new time, a new era for the sport of triathlon. I think for the international federation, it’s the first time that we are partnering with a private organiser in the sport in such a deep way,” World Triathlon president Antonio Fernandez Arminany tells City AM.
“I think this is unique and is the way to go, because if we want to really commercialize this sport in a global and solid way, we have to consolidate the product that we have, at least for television clients and any other sponsor that could come to the sport. So I think it’s fundamental change, it’s a new time, and we are all very excited to see and to develop this.”
New tour brand a boost for PTO
It’s a huge vote of confidence in the PTO, which was kickstarted by British billionaire investor Sir Michael Moritz in 2020, includes broadcast partner Warner Bros Discovery as a shareholder, and this year added Saudi vehicle Surj Sports Investment to its cap table.
The new Triathlon World Tour will create a portfolio of around 100 events a year, a move that Arimany says will be “good for the athletes, national federations and for the fans”.
Branding races as T100 and T50, depending on distance, will only help the sport’s argument for adding long-distance triathlon to the Olympic programme.
This is where World Triathlon’s governing body expertise comes into play, and the bullish Arimany, who wants triathlon to become as big as golf and tennis, is optimistic that T100 could be an Olympic discipline as soon as Brisbane 2032.
“We will try to put the T100 event within the Olympic programme,” the Spaniard adds. “At this moment we are waiting, because the IOC is discussing the new criteria to integrate new events for any sport. But one of the strategies that we have been discussing with the PTO is to include a new event in the Olympic Games.
“For us, we should be sure that we contribute and we bring something to the Olympic programme too, not just one additional event. And in this sense, we are going to be very focused on creating and commercialising these events in the highest way we can. It has to be a win-win situation with the Olympic programme itself.
“So we have a lot of work to do. We have to first do our own work, and then I’m sure we will be successful to present this as a strong event for the Olympic programme.”
World Triathlon returning to London in 2026
It doesn’t hurt triathlon’s case that leading contenders to host future Games, and therefore have a say in the spread of sports, include PTO partners Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Arimany, however, is keen to move faster, with Brisbane 2032 a target.
“I think it helped more that Queensland is hosting a T100 event in the Gold Coast, where we are having the plan to have the triathlon event for the Olympic Games,” he says.
“I think in that sense, where we are with Brisbane is even better than where we could be with Qatar. It’s going to be up to us. It depends how much we are able to grow the event in the next two years, and then I will say, why not?”
In its last season before the rebrand, the World Triathlon Championship Series will return to London for the first time in 11 years. It will replace a T100 event in late July, and Arimany says it is set to become an annual fixture for T50 races.
With Britain a major force in the sport, with the likes of Alex Yee, Lucy Charles-Barclay and newly-crowned T100 champion Kate Waugh, some kind of presence in the capital is something of a no-brainer.
“It’s great to be in London, one of the biggest markets for triathlon. The popularity of triathlon in the UK is amazing. The number of athletes that we have in the UK is unique,” Arimany adds.
“We are going to try to build the event and make it bigger. Then we could think we should do more than one, but I think the first goal is to make it grow and to make it big.”