The Professional Triathletes Organisation (PTO) and World Triathlon (TRI) have announced they are to build on their T100 partnership with the unveiling of the Triathlon World Tour.
The Triathlon World Tour will launch in 2027 and combine the existing T100 Triathlon World Tour, a rebranded World Triathlon Championship Series and World Triathlon Cups.
The T100 Tour will be rebranded as the T100 World Championship Series. The World Triathlon Championship Series (WTCS) will be rebranded the T50 World Championship Series and a newly formed feeder series will be branded a ‘Challenger’ series.
It is arguably the most significant event development within the sport in years.
What will change?
Combined across the different distances and two competition levels – World Championship and Challenger – the Triathlon World Tour will grow to approximately 100 events per year from 2027, with a number of new events being announced in early 2026.
As well as consolidating the traditional standard, sprint and 100km triathlon distances under one unified brand and commercial offering, which clearly heroes the different distances, the PTO will invest in creating a single and consistent broadcast product, providing fans with a true year-round offering.
It is the latest step in the 12-year strategic partnership between the two organisations which was announced in October 2024 with the aim of growing the sport longer term.
World Triathlon and the PTO will unveil the full details of the new Triathlon World Tour, including branding, tiered competition structure and organisational set‑up, at an event in the first quarter of 2026.
PTO explain rationale behind the change
The announcement said the strategy responds to the key findings of World Triathlon’s Deloitte Report, unveiled earlier this year, which sought to ‘reimagine the future of triathlon’ and ‘unlock triathlon’s untapped commercial and global opportunities’.
While identifying the potential in the sport, the report also highlighted a fragmented ecosystem. The report recommended a change from a technically driven model to a commercially driven one – which is the intention of the new Triathlon World Tour.
Speaking about the announcement, PTO CEO Sam Renouf said: “Announcing this new blueprint for the sport is an incredibly exciting next phase of our partnership with World Triathlon and to grow the sport. The Deloitte Report’s recommendation to move to a more commercially driven model was clear and aligns with the ambition to take the sport mainstream and adopt a model that many other sports have successfully followed to unlock greater value for the athletes and the whole ecosystem.
“The new Triathlon World Tour and its respective T100, T50 and Challenger products, will mean there is a single brand and competition structure that helps fans, media, sponsors and other stakeholders to more clearly understand the offering.”
“It’s also a great validation of our strategy and our partnership with World Triathlon and a demonstration of the trust that we’ve built up. As well as being a great example of how our governance structure has allowed us to create close strategic alignment between three very important stakeholder groups: the professional athletes, the international federation and strategic investors. This alignment has allowed the PTO and the athletes to very quickly establish a new World Tour product that has already had a significant impact on the sport.”
World Triathlon perspective
Commenting on the news, World Triathlon President, Antonio Arimany, explained the rationale behind the move by saying: “World Triathlon’s Deloitte report made it very clear that our sport has enormous potential, but that we must adapt to an increasingly competitive market if we want to unlock it.
“One of the key insights was the need to follow the example of other international federations by clearly separating commercial operations from governance functions. That work strongly supported the case for the PTO to be our partner in this project, bringing together complementary strengths for the long-term benefit of triathlon”.
“At the same time, the report underlined how fragmented triathlon still is, both from a brand perspective – with World Triathlon, PTO/T100, IRONMAN, Challenge and others – and in terms of sporting hierarchy, from World Championships and the World Triathlon Championship Series to World Cups and T100 events.
“Our successful collaboration with the T100 Tour has already shown what is possible in terms of event delivery, broadcast audiences and commercial interest, as well as through the events we have trialled together in the French Riviera and in Wollongong in 2025, and now with the return of WTCS London in 2026. This next step is therefore a natural evolution, and we are genuinely excited about what it will mean for the future of triathlon and para triathlon when we unveil the full Triathlon World Tour early next year,” he explained.
How it will work in 2026
The 2026 T100 Triathlon World Tour will deliver its 9-stop T100 Race To Qatar as planned, and will visit: the Gold Coast (21-22 March), Singapore (25-26 April), Spain (23-24 May), San Francisco (6-7 June), Vancouver (15-16 August), French Riviera (19-20 September), Dubai (12-15 November), Saudi Arabia (November) & Qatar (11-12th December).
The 2026 World Triathlon Championship Series will take place across the 10-stop calendar it announced in Wollongong in October 2024: Abu Dhabi (27 March), Samarkand (25-26 April), Yokohama (16 May), Alghero (5 June), Quiberon (20 June), Hamburg (11 July), London (25 July), Weihai (29 August), Karlovy Vary (11 September) and the Pontevedra Championship Finals (24-29 September).
The Triathlon World Tour will begin in 2027 and the T100 World Championship Series and T50 World Championship Series will crown the only officially recognised World Champions respectively.
Sitting below the World Championship level, the newly created Challenger Series will consist of a range of events – including those formerly known as World Triathlon Cups – across T100, standard and sprint distances, which will provide a clear pathway to their Championship equivalents and Olympic qualifying events.
Olympic ambition
At the same time, the PTO and World Triathlon will continue to work together towards the 100km triathlon distance being considered for the Olympic Games; an idea first introduced at a World Triathlon summit in Hamburg in July 2024, which also reflects the IOC’s openness to explore more mass participation type events – as it did at the Paris 2024 Games with the Marathon Pour Tous.
Speaking further about the plans, Renouf added: “We decided that now was the right moment to announce these plans, so that we can build out its delivery in a sustainable way as well as talk openly about the exciting media, broadcast and commercial opportunities that it will bring.
“As we’ve seen this season on the T100 Tour following our five-year partnership with Visit Qatar in January and then more recent announcements over the last few weeks, there is a real commercial appetite to partner with a sport where you can associate with the super human efforts of our elite athletes but also the mass participation, fitness and community that come with the range of amateur opportunities our events offer.”
