Duathlon: ETU Sprint- and Long-Distance 2012 Finals Announced
This is not the Netherlands.
“What ETU Sprint Final !” you cry.
Yep, I’m as surprised and delighted as many of you will be about this. It’s a total turn up for the books (or at least the ones I was reading). It seems that a World Champs may or may not be happening so the “don’t-want-to-race-so-far” Sprint Duathlon guys might perhaps have been postponing family holiday plans in Europe in favour of weekends away with the boys (or girls) doing a few domestic events. Not any more…
The people who bring you the POWERMAN Long Distance Duathlon are also bringing you the inaugural SPRINT Duathlon European Championships AT THE SAME EVENT.
Awesome.
The first issue is how will the BTF find events to count as qualifiers (they could always double-count World and European qualification from the same events). I guess that’s a nice problem to have. As I discussed only on my previous post about Sprint Duathlon qualifiers there are quite a few events out there eg Clumber, that can’t count as World Qualifiers as they clash with standard distance qualifiers.
Anyway a nice problem to have. ie an event for which qualifiers can be organised 😉
Then of course there is just the sheer commercial and competitive sense of the combo proposed. The Long and Sprint distances must surely attract different types of people. Me, for example, I’d never consider a long Duathlon just like I’d never consider a marathon…even though I could relatively easily do both (albeit not competitively).
And what a great way to raise the profile of POWERMAN. The pazazz of a bit more short course action coupled with maybe 1000 more competitors and 1000 more spectators. That should make the organising town and LOC a bit of money. Sorted. We Brits will provide much of the subsidy but, hey ho, that’s Europe for you.
I’m sure there must be a downside for this event but frankly I can’t see it. [Other than it clashes with the English Standard Distance Duathlon Championships and is the week after the ETU Standard Distance Champs. I guess there might have to be 2 courses as well but that can’t be rocket science to figure out].
And no hills, that must be good. Flat and short, that’s me!
And to make matters even better…you might just pre-qualify. See NEW 2012 pre-qualification criteria below
2012 European Championships:
N/A The top 3 GB athletes at the 2011 European Championships who are returning to compete in the same age group pre-qualify.
The first GB athlete at the 2011 World Championships who is returning to compete in the same age group pre-qualifies.
N/A The 2011 British national champion who is returning to compete in the same age group will pre-qualifies.
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