Newfoundland Ironman expected to be bigger and better, says organizer

CORNER BROOK - With just over four weeks remaining before the second annual Newfoundland Ironman 70.3 gets underway, organizers are feeling pretty good about how things are progressing.

It's to be expected, of course, that the second go-around would run a little smoother than the first, but it isn't only the preparation that has improved - the race itself is expected to be bigger and better as well.

"We feel like we're more organized than last year, so that's always good," race director Carl Barrett told The Western Star. "Registration numbers are a little bit ahead of last year, but we have a distinctly larger number of people coming from the United States, in particular.

"There are less Newfoundlanders registering, which may be due to the fact that the Tely 10 is the same day ...that's unfortunate timing," he added. "But we have an increased number of people from the United States and the rest of Canada coming."

Barrett is expecting more than 300 racers to take part - a mixture of professionals and amateurs - in the July 27 event that is typically focused more on the amateur athlete and people attempting to achieving their personal goals over such a long distance. And the 1.9-kilometre swim, 90-km bike ride and 21-km run isn't only for young legs, but also for the young at heart.

"Our oldest competitor last year was 65 and he's coming back again this year and we actually have a 72-year-old woman coming this year," he said. "We have two or three people up in that higher-60s age category that will be taking part."

The positive feedback on past triathlon races has been well-documented and last year's inaugural Ironman 70.3 race was no different, as Barrett said organizers received a huge number of positive comments and e-mails, while word of mouth is really paying dividends with regards to pro athletes wanting to make the trip here to compete as well.

"We have the reigning female world champion coming to do our race this year because last year's winner (and male world champion) Craig Alexander was telling her she should come down to our race," said Barrett. "We have another athlete who will probably be coming who is, like, big time ...but I don't want to say who it is until we finalize everything. It will be really exciting if that person comes."

A volunteer co-ordinator has just been hired this week to begin the task of rounding up around 250 volunteers that will be needed for the event and Barrett isn't foreseeing any difficulties in securing that number, even with another volunteer-heavy event, the 2008 Provincial Summer Games, coming up in August.

"There is no overlap between the two events and there's always been a really strong volunteer spirit in this region and in this town," he said. "We had a lot of enthusiasm last year and a lot of groups came out, like the Little Rapids Fire Department and the Dunfield Park Community Centre. It was really good to see groups coming together and volunteering as a team and we're hoping to get a few groups come out like that again."

Barrett also wanted to draw attention to the fact that this event could be seen as a huge boon to the tourism industry, just by the sheer number of people it will attract to the area.

"We do research on the athletes that come in and they bring, on average, 1.5 non-athletes with them," he said.

"For every athlete, we're really getting 2.5 people, so we're really bringing in 250 Americans, 250 Canadians... over 500 tourists. Every hotel room and bed and breakfast will be sold out, every rental vehicle will be booked.

"The economic impact will be felt by the external dollars coming into our community," he added. "That's what we've always tried to do and it's something we're really excited about."