Thursday, November 10, 2011

70.3 NOLA and 5150 NOLA on the same day?

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Really?  And the finish is not in the French Quarter.

In an effort to draw more attention to the Ochsner Ironman 70.3 New Orleans and the Ochsner 5150 Orleans, both events will be on the same day, race coordinator Bill Burke announced Tuesday.

The races were held four weeks apart last year, but both will be April 22, 2012.

"For the long-term success of the events, running them simultaneously is what we need to do," Burke said. "It creates a larger event on the same day. We thought it was best to combine the events. You're going to see that more with 5150 events around the country."

Read more here.

Does this change your opinion of the race?

4 comments:

Big Daddy Diesel said...

Rev3 has different distances on the same day, it works for them

TriMOEngr said...

I'm not sure what the 5150 is, but it seems that it isn't that uncommon to have different distances on the same day or consecutive days. Seems like you get an economy of scale as organizers only have to battle one slightly larger set of logistics (volunteers, facilities, porto-pot rentals, etc) as opposed to two complete separate sets. On the other hand, I can see that if you wanted to do both to have a variety of race distances in your season this would stink.

Tri-James said...

I guess the major issue is that the 70.3 race had one of the best finishes in all of triathlon - in the French Quarter. Now that has changed.

Ransick said...

Finishing in the French Quarter was awesome this year. My family was able to hang out and get some great food while they waited. I was on the fence about doing the race again in 2012 and finishing in City Park is a negative to me.