PTO makes dramatic move into short-course racing with new T1 Indoor Triathlon World Cup

The PTO – whose flagship T100 Triathlon World Tour has recently expanded to eight events for 2025 – is now making a significant new venture into short-course racing.

In conjunction with World Triathlon, it has announced a partnership with the Indoor World Cup Lievin to create a race which will be part of the World Triathlon Cup circuit.

T100 races feature a 2km swim, 80km bike and 18km run, but the newly-titled T1 Indoor Triathlon World Cup will showcase a quickfire made-for-TV, spectator-friendly format of a 200m swim, 2.8km bike and 1km run.

It will take place in northern France on March 22 and be delivered in partnership with the Lievin Triathlon Club, which has successfully produced the innovative Lievin Indoor Triathlon Festival for the past three years.

Fast and furious

Uniquely it takes place entirely indoors, with a specially built 25m pool situated within a 200m oval track for the bike and run segments.

The racing action promises to be the fastest in the sport – with the leading athletes taking less than 10 minutes to complete the course.

When the PTO announced a 12-year partnership with World Triathlon last year, it referenced creating a framework “to explore new opportunities to grow the sport together, including hosting shorter distance events alongside the T100 Tour” and this would appear to be a first step on that journey.

Intriguingly the closest comparison is the supertri E World Championship which takes place in London in April and is a partnership between supertri and World Triathlon.

That merges real life and virtual racing, with athletes swimming in a 50m pool and then cycling on static bikes and running on treadmills, with the fast and frantic pace echoing the outdoor supertri races.

Triathlon World Cup status

“When we launched the T100 Triathlon World Tour, our stated aim was to take triathlon into the mainstream,” said Sam Renouf, the CEO of the PTO.

“We’ve seen huge progress in our inaugural year, surging past our previous broadcast records and growing our social media viewership to the largest in the sport, with over 500 million video views of our content last year. Our decision to participate in this developing fast and furious format of indoor racing lets us explore further partnership opportunities and seek to further promote triathlon and the incredible performances of its professional athletes.”

The Lievin format was tested last year as a World Triathlon Cup, and for the previous two years as a Europe Triathlon Cup.

The elite racing will feature 120 men and women competing, with 12 athletes in each heat. The event format incorporates heats, semi-finals, repechage and finals.

The event will offer elite athletes the same ranking points (500 to the winners) and prize purse ($60,000) as all other World Cups, with the World Triathlon Cup season getting under way in Napier, New Zealand, in February.

The President of Lievin Triathlon Club, Lolo Szewczyk, said: “We are excited to be partnering with the Professional Triathletes Organisation to take indoor triathlon further on the global stage. This has been a project of passion for our club over the past two years, working closely together with World Triathlon, which has been warmly embraced by the global triathlon community, such as last year’s champions Vetle Bergsvik Thorn and Mixed Relay Olympic Gold medalist Laura Lindemann.

“In adding the involvement of the PTO together with World Triathlon we are excited for this year’s Indoor World Cup event, we declare ambitions to make Indoor Triathlon a fixture of the professional calendar – and Lievin as its spiritual home.”

Vancouver joins T100 party

The T100 Triathlon World Tour meanwhile has added an eighth event to its schedule, with T100 Vancouver taking place on 13-15 June at Jericho Beach Park.

The PTO has so far announced eight T100 events for 2025, including: Singapore (5-6 April); San Francisco (31 May-1 June); Vancouver (13-15 June); London (9-10 August); Ibiza (September TBA); Lake Las Vegas (TBA); and Dubai on 15-16 November.