Helping to shed light on the expansion of IRONMAN races across Europe next year, Thomas Dieckhoff, CEO for IRONMAN Europe, Middle East and Africa, spoke with Tri247.com whilst at Kona for the 2015 IRONMAN World Championships. The interview, conducted by Joanne Murphy for Tri247, touched on a number of areas and can be viewed on Tri247.com, and via the media site’s YouTube channel.
Dieckoff started by commenting on the great performances by European athletes, particularly German athletes on the world stage. He noted that new races and new programs had already been brought into Europe to help drive the sport.
The interview then turned to the significant number of UK athletes participating in IRONMAN races across Europe. And, with UK athletes racing across Europe, and with races in England, Wales and Ireland selling out, Dieckoff noted that the company wishes to increase capacity on its UK races.
“We’re going to launch six new races [across Europe & the Middle East]; and we put them where we see that there is the biggest demand,” Dieckhoff said. “We have announced a new race in Sweden, a 70.3 race, which is nearly sold out already.”
He continued, “We will have a new race in Dubai, in the Middle East; and we will have a new race in Estonia for the first time. This is great for the athletes from the Baltic countries, and from Russia and Finland. We will have two new races in Italy…. And we will have an additional race in England. We cannot say where as yet, as we are in final stages on agreements with the host city [in England] and all the participants that are involved. We still have to finalise a couple of contracts, but I’m pretty sure that we will be done in the next two weeks.”
