PTO announces new races and $5.5 million prize purse

The Professional Triathletes Organisation (PTO) has announced news of a three-race series that includes two new events plus the second edition of the Collins Cup.

Two further events have been pencilled in for 2023, while a prize purse of $5.5 million is up for grabs across the 2022 series, aka the PTO Tour.

The new 2022 PTO tour

The new events are the PTO Canadian Open in Edmonton on 23-24 July 2022 and the PTO US Open in Dallas, Texas, over the weekend of 17-18 September 2022, with the Collins Cup in Bratislava, Slovakia, sandwiched in-between on 21-22 August 2022. The PTO Asian Open and the PTO European Open are to follow in 2023.

“It’s great to see the PTO Tour come together,” Alistair Brownlee said on launch. “It’s a fantastic opportunity for professional triathletes to raise their profile through global TV coverage and win some meaningful prize money.”

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The prize money

And that prize money really is meaningful. In a sport where prize money’s often seemed like an after-thought, both the PTO Canadian Open and PTO US Open will see male and female triathletes compete for a prize purse of $1,000,000.

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There’s $1,500,000 up for grabs at the Collins Cup. In addition, the PTO’s ‘Race to the Rankings’ bonus pool of $2,000,000 is retained, meaning a total prize pot of $5,500,000.

The race format

All races will be run over the PTO’s 100km format, broken down as a 2km swim, 80km bike and 18km run. As we’ve come to expect of the PTO, extensive TV coverage and shoulder programming (type of pre-event and post-event broadcast programming as a companion to live sporting events) are on the cards.

It’s great news for professional triathletes, but news that’ll seriously prick the ears of the Ironman organisation, for whom the events present a media-coverage threat to the two Ironman World Championships in May and October next year.

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There’ll be further disquiet in the Ironman and Challenge offices as the PTO’s also announced that age-group racing will take place at each event, with the options of middle-distance (100km) and sprint-distance (25km), albeit the breakdown of swim, bike and run disciplines is to be confirmed. The PTO’s promising a more affordable entry fee than its competition.

We’ll keep you abreast of developments as and when they happen.

Top image credit: PTO