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Age-Group Prize Money?

Saturday, 09 April 2016 00:10

The trend reflects the changing role of age-groupers in triathlon.

By Susan Lacke (triathlon.competitor.com)

In recent years, prize purses for professional triathletes have been significantly reduced—the HyVee triathlon, once a 1.1 million dollar event, is no more; the Life Time Tri series cut the majority of its professional prize purse; Ironman has redistributed its prize money and eliminated pro races at several events.

But that doesn’t mean prize purses have disappeared altogether. Instead, more and more races are offering cash winnings to amateur age-group athletes in hopes of attracting a large competitive field. Entrants in 2016 Toughman events, for...

example, will compete for their share of $30,000 in cash and prizes in a series of qualifying races culminating at the Toughman National Championship in September.

“We support age groupers and have done so since we started Toughman 10 years ago,” says Race Director Richard Izzo. “We would rather put the money into supporting the age groupers.”

Iowa’s Pigman Triathlon also offers cash prizes for athletes in hopes of attracting a competitive age-group field to the race, says Race Director John Snitko: “We offer prize money because we want to get good racers to our event each year. Most of the time a good field will attract other racers to an event.”

It’s a strategy that works on William “Biff” Capune, an age-group athlete from New York City. “I do seek out races with good award prizes,” says Capune. “I’ve probably won a few thousand dollars’ worth of prizes over the years.”

But Capune recognizes he’s in the red, even when he’s on the top of the podium: “I know I’ve spent 10 times that amount on race entries and race travel, so it’s not a good investment. But we all seem to like the race swag, even though the finisher’s shirt is probably worth only $15 and we spent $280 to enter the race, we still wear it with pride.”  READ