70.3 Worlds set for Tennessee
Chattanooga to host the Ironman 70.3 showcase in 2017
Chattanooga in Tennessee has been chosen as the host the 2017 Ironman 70.3 World Championships. The championship race will be a two-day event with the professional and age-group women racing on Saturday 9 September 2017 and the professional and age-group men racing on Sunday 10 September.
After its European debut in Austria in 2015, the 2016 70.3 World Champs shifts to the Southern Hemisphere for the first time – in Queensland, Australia’s Sunshine Coast – before returning to North America in 2017.
Ironman expects more than 185,000 registered athletes to race at over 100 Ironman 70.3 races around the world throughout the 2017 qualifying season. From those races, more than 4,000 athletes will qualify to race in the 2017 70.3 Worlds.
Home of Quintana Roo bikes, Chattanooga is an outdoor sports honeypot that already hosts a full Ironman (won last week in a sprint finish by Estonia’s Kirill Kotsegarov). The 70.3 event had a successful debut in May 2015, attracting over 2,000 athletes in its sell-out debut.
Chattanooga provides a fast course with a swim in the Tennessee River. Four bridges cross the river over the swim and a pedestrian Riverwalk runs along the entire swim course making it ideal for spectators, before the bike heads out to the rolling Tennessee hills.
More info is at: www.ironman.com/ironman-70.3/world-championship
Matt Baird
Editor of Cycling Plus magazine 
