SBI, the new owners of the London Triathlon, gave a press briefing today at the ExCel exhibition centre on Docklands. Also appearing were Simon Lessing, who was waiting for news of the imminent arrival of his first child, John Raadschelders, the Dutch race organiser, and Norman Brook of the BTA. It was strange being at the site of the 1998 London, the last one organised by Human Race, and seeing all the new development on what had been a blank lot. Indeed, ExCel will form the centrepiece of the event with the transition area and finish being inside the building and each lap of the bike and run going through it as well.

Listening to the presentations also put the clock back to when Michael Smithwick's Esprit first announced the event; it will be the 3rd largest triathlon in the world (Esprit once claimed it was the largest), it will be 25% bigger than last year (3,000 entries expected, again...) and so on. The claim was also made that it would be the first event ever to have an indoor transition -- not so, one of the original London events in the 1980s had an indoor transition and we're pretty sure that others have too. However, as Rod Alexander of SBI said, this represents a new beginning. In 1999 when they first looked at buying the event he said that it was "creaking at the seams in terms of resources and management" and he's not far from the truth there. Now there is a much more polished promotion team, a professional race organiser and the feeling that money will be spent to make it happen, and happen properly. It's even getting BBC coverage with highlights on Grandstand a week after the race.

Some details have yet to be finalised; the elite may have a different bike route that takes them down to Tower Bridge and the City before looping back to the age group course, there is no title sponsor -- and SBI have accepted that they may not get one for 2001, the details for the corporate relay are still to be finalised. What is sorted is that the event has a prize purse of $25,000 for the first 10 elite men and women and that the individual entries are now full with 1,600 places taken. The remaining slots will be filled by the charities and by the relays -- remember that they count a team as 3 individuals which always skews the numbers.

Will the event be better? The venue is better, the promotion team is better -- that much is clear. There is every indication that the race organisation will be significantly better than in the past two years but only the event itself will tell the final story. One thing is for sure: having paid £500,000 for the event it's unlikely that SBI can afford for it to not be better on the day. They need the repeat business to attract a title sponsor and begin to recoup their costs.