IRONMAN has announced that the top-ranked female athletes proportional by age group have been selected and invited to race the 2017 IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship taking place in Chattanooga, Tennessee. These additional slots will be utilized by Women For Tri, a program of the IRONMAN Foundation, which was launched by IRONMAN and Life Time Fitness to ‘welcome and empower new female triathletes to be part of the sport’s continued growth’. 100% of the net proceeds from the registration revenue supporting their Women For Tri’s TriClub and collegiate athlete grants.
200 slots have been allocated to top performing female triathletes based on the athlete’s total 2016 IRONMAN 70.3 Age Group Ranking (AGR) points. Allocating these slots based on IRONMAN 70.3 AGR will aim to ‘create a deeper field of female athletes and maintain the integrity and prestige of a world championship event’. The AGR system measures an athlete’s performance in IRONMAN 70.3 races throughout the 2016 calendar year. Should an invitation go unanswered or declined, the slot will roll down to the next qualified athlete in that age group. The final list of 200 athletes will be announced at a later date.
Since its inception in 2015, Women For Tri has helped increase female participation in IRONMAN and IRONMAN 70.3 events by a reported 18%, which totals out to more than 62,000 female athletes globally. In addition, over US$131,000 has been raised to fund multiple TriClub and collegiate athlete grants through the initiative.
“We are excited to welcome top age-group athletes from around the world to this year’s IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship in Chattanooga,” said Women For Tri-Board of Advisors member and US Representative from Arizona, Kyrsten Sinema.
“As women’s participation in triathlon increases globally, Women For Tri seeks to encourage and support women to Tri for their dreams, and we hope the 2017 IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship in Chattanooga inspires more women to do so.”
The IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship is the pinnacle event in the global IRONMAN 70.3 triathlon series. The 2017 championship race will be a two-day event with the professional and age group women racing on Saturday 9 September 2017, and the professional and age group men racing on Sunday 10 September.
More than 4,000 athletes will qualify to race in the 2017 IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship at over 100 IRONMAN 70.3 races around the world throughout the 2017 qualifying season.
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