On Monday, the Professional Triathletes Organization (PTO) issued a press release announcing a new event - the European Open, to take place in Ibiza at the same time as the ITU Long Course World Championships on May 6, 2023. Further down in that announcement, however, were some quieter announcements that immediately ruffled the feathers of many professional triathletes. Specifically, the PTO announced that in 2023, the starting fields at the PTO Tour events (the European Open, the U.S. Open and the Asian Open) will be tightened up, with only 30 athletes per gender on the start line for the European and U.S. Opens, and 20 athletes per gender at the Asian Open, down from 40 starters for the Opens in 2022, for the purported reason of needing to “establish[] a more regular consistency of ‘world championship level’ events.” At those same events, the overall prize purses are being lowered from $1 million to $600,000. The winning prize of $100K remains, and every finisher will be paid.

Most notably, though, the PTO’s $2 million end-of-year bonus pool remains, but the bonuses previously paid to athletes ranked 51-100 are being eliminated and redistributed to increase the payments to those ranked 13-40. In the press release itself, the PTO acknowledged that “some members will be unhappy,” but was quick to point out that the changes were unanimously approved by the Athlete Board and necessary to protect the future of the Organization and its long-term vision.

Frankly, that offers little reassurance, as the Athlete Board is composed of members directly benefiting from the changes, who are serving within an entity that has not been at all transparent about the long-term vision that supposedly underpins these decisions.

In many regards, the emergence of the PTO since 2020 has been great for raising the profile of professional triathlon and making it a financially viable career path for many. I have real fear, however, that the current direction of the PTO may be damaging the future of professional long course triathlon, and it’s becoming apparent that an organization that signed on hundreds of professional triathletes with the promise of being an athlete-led representative body, instead is proving to be little more than a for-profit event management with little input from, or regard for, athletes outside the core constituency that may best help further its profit goals.

Here’s my history with the PTO and why I care. For several years, I was one of those “non-professional professionals” who raced in the Elite field. In my mid-30s, I paused my career as an attorney to make a go at racing among the professional ranks, guided more by the philosophy of YOLO than any real belief that I’d ever “make it” as a pro. And I really haven’t made it – I landed on a few 70.3 and Ironman podiums when the fields were pretty soft, but at this time, I’m old and firmly mid-to-back of pack. When the pandemic hit, it coincided with the peak of my athletic timeline, so since 2019, I’ve been winding things down and racing very sporadically. I haven’t benefited from the PTO payouts, nor have I expected to, but I did join the organization in 2020, although with a skeptical eye. All that to say, I’m not coming to this from a place of sour grapes, but as an educated semi-outside observer, fan of the sport, and friend / colleague to many developing pros still on the cusp of trying to make it.

When the PTO got started, it held a lot of promise for the entire professional field. 2020 shut the world of racing down, and PTO swooped in as a white knight, doling out unexpected and generous bonuses to many of its members, giving professionals an opportunity to race in 2020 by attaching prize purses to local events when larger scale events were cancelled, and with the Challenge Family, putting on Challenge Daytona, by far the most exciting (and for its participants, lucrative) racing of 2020. The PTO kept a lot of triathletes in business in 2020 and understandably garnered substantial goodwill. When the athletes signed on, there were promises of things that would help all professional triathletes - things like affordable health care plans, maternity policies (which were implemented, admirably, but now only benefit a very small number of racers), and more racing opportunities, much like had been enabled in 2020. Optimism was high amongst the pro ranks and in many ways, it seemed too good to be true.

But as the PTO has evolved, for many professionals, it’s become more and more clear that this is not an organization created to benefit all professional triathletes, as had initially been pitched, but instead an entity designed to create a profitable product that relies upon showcasing the very top tier of athletes, and thus compensating only that very top tier. The structure of the PTO is illustrative. Using a complex algorithm to rank its athletes based on performance, the PTO essentially creates an inner circle of the Top 50 athletes, and then has multiple safeguards in place to entrench those Top 50 and make it difficult for others to break in. Specifically, if you’re sitting outside Top 50 in the rankings, you:

• Cannot participate in any of the PTO Tour events, unless given one of a few discretionary wildcard slots.


• Cannot vote on any of PTO’s measures. Yes, there is an Athlete Board, but only the Top 50 ranked athletes can vote on who sits on that Board, and even among the Top 50, those votes are weighted such that the higher an athlete’s rank, the more voting power they have. (New this year, one ranked outside the Top 50 can serve on the Athlete Board, but only if they’re nominated by three Top 50 individuals and voted on by those in the Top 50. Currently, all Athlete Board members are ranked in the Top 50).


• As of 2023, will not receive a year-end bonus, as the bonus money previously allocated for athletes ranked 51-100 ($200,000 total) has now been reallocated to give bigger year-end bonuses to those ranked 13-40.

Add to that a ranking system that heavily weights its own, invite-only, events, and it becomes clear that not only is this not a body representative of the entire professional triathlete population, but it’s set up so that it’s increasingly difficult for any athletes currently sitting outside that top tier to break in and share the benefits. And before you question whether those below the Top 50 are “true” professionals actually deserving of the funding and opportunities, here are just a few names of athletes currently outside the Top 50 based on the PTOs newly reworked ranking system: Mirinda Carfrae, Amelia Watkinson, Lauren Brandon, Josh Amberger, David McNamee, Brent McMahon, and Eric Lagerstrom – all athletes who have done a huge amount to elevate professional racing.

Here’s the thing - it is perfectly fine for the PTO to use its money in this way. The athletes are not funding the organization; none have bought in or paid dues, none are owed anything simply by means of being a professional triathlete. While the PTO has been framed as an athlete organization, in reality, the athletes do not hold the purse strings and seemingly have little influence. Yes, there’s an Athlete Board, but I’m skeptical as to how much power they actually have when it comes to financial decisions. One of the Athlete Board members confirmed as much in a podcast recently, speaking almost apologetically as she tried to explain that the Athlete Board and the “commercial arm” of the PTO are entirely separate, and that previous messaging suggesting that this was an athlete-led organization was inaccurate. The investors and directors are running and funding this show, can do what they want with their money, and they’ve chosen to focus it entirely on the very top tier. It’s a very reasonable decision. The top tier athletes have put on some great shows, allowing the PTO to create compelling content that they hope will become profitable, and have been compensated justly, with amounts that are life-changing for many.

But let’s call the PTO what it is - a business, not an athletes’ organization, that is competing vigorously in the event organization space.

My concern, however, is long-term – what really is this organization doing for the future of professional triathlon as a whole? In the very early days of the PTO, even before 2020, the PTO was openly hostile to Ironman, and there’s really nothing to suggest that the current relationship between those entities, if it even exists, is any less icy. PTO events are creeping closer and closer to Ironman World Championships on the calendar (the Asian Open in Singapore is just one week before Ironman 70.3 Worlds this year). Could a world exist where the PTO puts one of its Open events or the Collins Cup in direct conflict with Kona or Nice? I don’t doubt it for a second, and fun fact, the standard PTO contract I signed in 2020 contractually requires any athlete invited to the Collins Cup to attend, without limitation. Maybe some of the top pros or their agents negotiated around that clause, but can you imagine a scenario in which the Top 50 professionals are contractually bound, or choose, to be somewhere other than the Ironman World Championship? I certainly can - it’s not a big stretch.

And from that, it’s not difficult at all to imagine a scenario in which Ironman simply washes its hands of pro racing in response to the current PTO, or continues to trim its already shrinking pro racing calendar as the highest profile athletes are diverted elsewhere. Yes, competition is good generally, and perhaps the presence of the PTO will force Ironman to keep raising its game, which would be great for everyone. Or maybe, Ironman will simply let the PTO keep paying out the huge prize purses to the top athletes, and exit the pro game altogether.

Andrew Messick himself seemingly hinted at this on the Pro Tri News podcast recently, after stating that Ironman currently considers PTO a competitor: “Is there a scenario in which they [the PTO] be involved in the pro side of the business and we [Ironman] be involved in the age group side of the business? I guess.” Ironman has shown repeatedly that it can easily sell out races without professional fields. Subtract out the Top 50, most visible athletes, and do they really need the rest of the professionals? And if not, then what? At least in North America, there’s really no other game in town. Sure, the Top 50 athletes will be fine so long as the PTO continues to exist and need them, but what about the rest of the athletes? And what happens if or when the money runs dry and the PTO investors move on?

What’s the solution? I’m not sure. I’m just troubled by what I’m seeing and hope that the athletes outside the Top 50, who comprise the vast majority of the professional triathlete population, are opening their eyes to the fact that the organization they are tacitly supporting and supposedly being represented by, isn’t really a representative body, isn’t proving to be interested in enabling their development or acting in their best interests, and in fact, may be damaging their future opportunities to participate in the sport. Maybe the PTO does have a plan that will end up benefiting all the professionals - first getting profitable and then spreading the wealth, or at least the opportunities. And indeed, Athlete Representatives have hinted at such a plan, promising Big Exciting Things in 2024. But if that’s the case, there should be some transparency as to that vision, and at this point, there has been none.

Frankly, actions like eliminating $200K worth of bonuses that were distributed to athletes ranked 51-100, money that made a real difference to those athletes, and simply re-distributing it to further compensate the higher ranked athletes, don’t garner a lot of confidence that there’s actually interest in growing the sport as a whole or helping to develop athletes outside of those already thriving.

Photos: Slowtwitch Files