Women for Tri Provides 450 Additional slots for 2018 IRONMAN 70.3 World Championships

400 Top performing female athletes based on 2018 IRONMAN 70.3 Age Group Rankings and 50 top performing female athletes from Standard Bank IRONMAN 70.3 Durban provided with additional bonus qualification spots
TAMPA, Fla. (May 7, 2018) – Women For Tri®, a program of the IRONMAN Foundation®, today announced that a total of 450 additional women have earned an invitation to race in the 2018 IRONMAN® 70.3® World Championship taking place in Nelson Mandela Bay, South Africa on September 1 and 2, 2018. After previously announcing 50 additional slots allocated to the Standard Bank IRONMAN 70.3 Durban race for top finishing female athletes, Women For Tri is providing 400 additional slots for top-ranked female athletes based on their total 2018 IRONMAN 70.3 Age Group Ranking (AGR) points. The additional slots will be utilized by Women For Tri, a program launched by IRONMAN to welcome and empower new female triathletes to be a part of the sport’s continued growth in high-level competition.
“We are excited to welcome top age-group athletes from around the world to this year’s IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship in South Africa,” said Kyrsten Sinema, Chair of the Women For Tri Advisory Committee and U.S. Representative from Arizona. “Following in the footsteps of the women who raced in support of Women For Tri last year in Chattanooga, we hope the 2018 IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship inspires women around the world to reimagine their potential as triathletes.”
Allocating these 400 additional slots based on IRONMAN 70.3 AGR will create a deeper field of female athletes and maintain the integrity and prestige of an IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship event. The AGR system measures an athlete’s performance in IRONMAN 70.3 races throughout the 2018 qualifying year.
All net proceeds from the registration revenue of the 400 additional slots will go towards supporting Women For Tri’s TriClub grant program. To date, nearly $250,000 has been awarded by this program to TriClubs around the world to support women’s engagement initiatives, including bringing first-timers into the sport. Since its inception in 2015, Women For Tri has seen an 18% increase in female participation in IRONMAN and IRONMAN 70.3 events, totaling more than 66,000 female athletes globally.
The IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship is the pinnacle event in the global IRONMAN 70.3 series. The 2018 IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship race will be a two-day event with the professional and age group women racing on Saturday, September 1 and the professional and age-group men racing on Sunday, September 2. Nearly 5,000 athletes will qualify to race in the 2018 IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship from among over 100 IRONMAN 70.3 races around the world throughout the 2018 IRONMAN 70.3 qualifying season.
For questions about Women For Tri programming, please contact womenfortri@ironman.com. For media related inquiries, please contact press@ironman.com.