Скачать или смотреть Triathlon News - Challenge Bahrain Cancelled

Click to see the triathlon news that Challenge Bahrain has been cancelled for the 2015 edition of the race.

Website: http://www.aracetaren.com
Instagram:   / aracetaren  
Twitter:   / aracetaren  
Facebook:   / aracecompany  
Google + : https://plus.google.com/+Aracenutriti...


On October 23rd the Challenge Family of Ironman distance races pissed off a lot of triathletes when the upcoming Challenge Bahrain that we to be held at the end of November would be cancelled. Challenge Family CEO Zibi Szlufcik and the Challenge Family made the following press release:

Dear Registered Athletes, we regret to inform you that Challenge Bahrain 2015 race will no longer go ahead on the 20th November due to issues regarding the road traffic safety permit for the race.

It goes on to say yada yada yada, we are unable to do this, we felt it was the interest of the athletes, blah blah blah.

To this end, Challenge Family will shortly be in direct contact with all of the athletes with a special offer that will help you continue your Challenge Family Athlete's Journey and achieve your triathlon goals.

Kind Regards, the Team at Challenge Bahrain 2015.

So obviously indicating that the Challenge Family will refund some, if not all of the entry fees paid to Challenge Bahrain to all of the athletes who have already registered in it. But even as of three days after this announcement was made, there were athletes on the Challenge Bahrain Facebook page that were saying they still hadn't been contacted about getting their entry fees refunded.

Beyond that, a bigger financial hit are all of the flights and hotels that all of these athletes have previously booked. And this announcement makes no claims to be covering any of those costs.

There was even one athlete on the Facebook page that claimed that they had already shelled out forty-five hundred dollars just to get to the race.

Challenge Bahrain was also supposed to be the final race in a three race multi-million dollar Triple Crown series where if Daniela Ryf had won Challenge Bahrain, she would be up for a million dollar prize.

This is all backed by His Highness Sheikh Nasser bin Hamad Al Khalifa. He's also putting a lot of money into the Bahrain Endurance triathlon Team that has triathletes like Daniela Ryf, Jan Frodeno, Javier Gomez, Ben Hoffman, Brent McMahon. And this is a big shame because this was supposed to be the grand unveiling of this excellent, well funded, triathlon team, triathlon development system, long distance endurance racing with big money in it.

Challenge Dubai was held early in February, that went off well. But then Challenge Oman was the second race in the Challenge Triple Crown series, that was cancelled. And then because they still had this Triple Crown Series where Daniela Ryf could have won a million dollars, they ended up unofficially officially making the Ironman 70.3 World Championship the Challenge Oman Race.

Seeing that it can't even get off the ground for one year? Makes me wonder if it's ever going to get off the ground.

All that said, this really shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. Over the past few weeks athletes have been complaining that anytime they had posted on the Challenge Bahrain Facebook page they wouldn't get a response. Emails were not coming back to them. So things were kind of indicating that things weren't going well in the weeks leading up to this announcement. And over the course of the last couple years the Challenge Family has been losing all kinds of races to the Ironman Brand.

There are some rumours floating around out there that all the prize money that was going to the pro racers is going to be redirected towards the Ironman Bahrain 70.3 race on December 5th. But Challenge hasn't commented on that whatsoever. So at this point it's just speculation based on the face that they partnered with Ironman to cover Challenge Oman.