After several years of tinkering with the way that Elite licenses are allocated the BTA Technical Committee has come up with an improved version for 2000. Stuart Coulson explains:

As you all probably know, the Elite License criteria has changed, so here's the official statement. The changes have been made in response to complaints from athletes, so we're trying to do the best thing for all athletes, race organisers alike.

To qualify for an Elite license, an athlete must have completed three (3) Olympic distance open water triathlons within 7% for men and 9% for women of the current National Olympic Distance Triathlon Champion's time. Richard Allen won the National Championships at Brighton in 1:52:23, so if a male athlete has finished three (3) Olympic distance events in under 2:00:15 (1:52:23 + 7%) then they can upgrade their standard BTA Race License to an Elite one, at no extra cost. Similarly, for women, Heather Williams won at Brighton in 2:06:07, so if a woman has completed three (3) such races in under 2:17:28 (2:06:07 + 9%) then she too can have an Elite License at no extra cost.

The three Olympic distance races should be Grand Prix, Championship, or World Qualifying events, or their international equivalent, within the previous season. A "new to triathlon" athlete cannot get an Elite license straight away, but could get one after three races.

The Elite license used to cost £50, but now it is £30 for non-club members and £24 for club members, the standard membership prices. The reason for the old higher prices was to cover Out-Of-Season Anti-Doping Controls which all Elite athletes were subjected to. The new Elite license means that these athletes are not part of this program, they are simply faster athletes. We have introduced a new level of membership for the top athletes who are part of the Anti-Doping Control Programme. This is called the World Performance License (which costs £50) and is for the World Class Performance Plan Athletes plus selected others.

So now we have the scenario of having more athletes available to compete in the elite waves of races (only the elite waves can take home the prize money in a race, unless there is no elite wave, as per 1999), where these athletes can be considered as elite within Britain, but not all of them can be considered as elite on a global scale. If an Elite athlete wants to race at the World Championships AS AN AGE-GROUPER, then it has up until now been a bit of a moot point. Now there will be a pre-determined race acting as a World Championships Qualifier that does not have an Elite wave, so elites can race against age-groupers and the first 'x' number past the post (whether they are elite or AG) will qualify.

For 2000 (qualifying for the Edmonton 2001 World Champs) this race will be at Gullane in East Lothian. It's the Scottish Championship and the fourth round of the BTA Grand Prix Series 2000. The event for Elites to qualify for AG slots will 'float' around the country so not always being held in one place.

As I said at the top, and pointed out in John Williams's 220 editorial in August, this is the BTA recognising the need to improve the whole Elite situation, both for the athletes and for the race organisers who have sometimes had to put on an Elite field with fewer than five athletes (Bournemouth springs to mind). It's also part of my job to try to improve the attractiveness of the whole Grand Prix and Championship events so, hopefully, this will result in more athletes taking out an Elite license and so making the elite races better without being to the detriment of the AG races / waves. It also means that an athlete can race Elite all year, so improving their performances as they're racing against a higher standard of competition, but they can still go to the World Champs as an Age-grouper (and hopefully perform better because of their inclusion in the Elite wave here) as long as they qualify at the one event where it's "first past the post".