IRONMAN and Life Time Fitness have announced that Women For Tri, the companies’ joint initiative to ‘welcome and empower new female triathletes to be part of the sport’s continued exponential growth’, has expanded globally, adding focus to the European and Asia-Pacific regions.
With this expansion, the two companies note that TriClub grants and collegiate scholarships program will now be available to female athletes globally.
In its first year in 2015, Women For Tri helped increase female participation in IRONMAN and IRONMAN 70.3 events globally by 18% to more than 62,000 female athletes. The initiative’s grants and scholarship program also raised more than US$200,000 to fund 28 North American based TriClubs and ten collegiate female athletes.
Beginning this year, the award program expanded to include applicants globally, including throughout Canada, South America and Latin America. There will be one more application session during 2016 starting in mid-September and the winners will be announced in December. Applications will open up to TriClubs and female collegiate triathletes globally.
“We are proud to provide more women around the world an opportunity to learn about triathlon and its incredible benefits for an active and healthy lifestyle,” said Christopher Stadler, Chief Marketing Officer for IRONMAN. “Our focus has been to grow the sport amongst female athletes at all levels and this next step in the global expansion of Women For Tri, from helping to fund new clubs and athletes’ journeys to providing critical information online, will help in that endeavour.”
As part of the program’s global expansion, Women For Tri has launched a website (migrating from ironman.com/womenfortri to womenfortri.com) as a central resource for women new to the sport to find fundamental information about triathlon. The new destination will serve as an online hub for weekly articles on training, nutrition, tips for active and healthy lifestyle, and inspirational and motivational content serving all female triathletes.
