Last week, some of our coaches attended Endurance Exchange in Orlando Florida. It was great to be back at an in person event to catch up with other coaches, attend some educational sessions and learn more about the state of the sport. It was also good to catch up with some new sponsors and find out what new gear is in the pipeline.
I always find it interesting to see the data and insights from USA Triathlon on where they see our sport headed. We came away from the confererence with a few big takeaways.
- 20-29 age group the age group growing the fastest. Up 18.2k over the past 3 years. This shows promise to the sport if we can keep them engaged and racing. This age group primarily buys one day licenses and not annual. 40-59 age group continues to decline and these indivudals were the ones who were racing multiple events each year. I think we have seen a shift in this age group, they are racing different things like gravel or trail running.
- The Sprint and Olympic distance continue to rise, 73% of athletes are racing in shorter distances. The gender split in racing the Super Sprint adn Sprint is around 40% women and 60% men with the longer disances the men are closer to 70% vs 30% women. We know that there is work to be done to even the gender racing field.
- Our races are heading back towards the pre COVID levels with 160 new races in the US over 2024. While this is only the races that are Sanctioned through USAT, I do believe the grassroots racing is important.
Interesting that athletes are trying AI generated plans and then moving to hiring a coach, showing that AI can fill some of the need in a basic plan but athletes are still looking for the personal support of a coach.
We have seen growth in our group programs, specifically looking at beginner athletes. This aligns with the trend of shorter distances and how coaches can impact athletes. It will be interesting to track the trends in the age groups and sport over the next few years. In general, the growth in both races and sports seems to be positive.
