👋 Welcome back
Morning endurance fans…
It’s time to strap in for another hit of swim, bike, run (and ski) action – the latest news, smart analysis and insider insight from our gloriously gut-busting, leg-wobbling, chest-heaving world of endurance sport.
Here’s what we have lined up for you today…
LATEST: The endurance news headlines
PREVIEW: The Tarawera Ultra-Trail by UTMB
SELL-OUT: Versailles 70.3 snapped up in record time
FUTURE: What now for triathlon as PTO acquires Challenge Family?
TIPS: How to recover from your next long run
The Aspire wetsuit is a multi-award-winning design that has defined triathlon wetsuit performance for over 15 years. The all-new 2025 version is crafted with innovative B-Prene Yamamoto neoprene, a sustainable material that reduces environmental impact. Designed to elevate your endurance, it allows you to swim further and faster while using less energy, making it the ultimate choice for triathletes and open water swimmers looking to maximise their performance.
🏃🏼 Quick splits
For the first time ever, there will be a 50:50 gender split at a UTMB event. [UTMB]
👫 History made at UTMB: A 50:50 gender split will line up at the Tarawera Ultra‑Trail this week, the first time an equal number of women and men will toe the start line at a UTMB World Series event. Read HERE.
🤕 LCB surgery: Reigning IRONMAN 70.3 World Champion Lucy Charles-Barclay has had surgery to remove a troublesome tendon, but is confident she will make a full recovery and bounce back better in 2026. Read HERE.
🏅 Olympics countdown: With the LA28 Olympic qualification process due to get underway this season, TRI247 News Director Jonathan Turner has started looking at the athletes who could be going for gold… starting with America. Read HERE.
🎽 Ready to return: Olympic gold medalist Alex Yee may have devoted last season to competing in marathons, but the Team GB star is now fully focused and eager to earn his place on the plane to Los Angeles in 2028. Read HERE.
🍎 Taking on the Big Apple: The lottery for the 2026 New York Marathon is now officially open until February 25. If you are thinking of giving this epic challenge a go, then click here for the RUN247 guide on how to apply. Read HERE.
🏁 Race news
It was a landmark win for Sam Harvey at last year’s Tarawera Ultra-Trail by UTMB. [UTMB]
🥾 Tarawera Ultra-Trail by UTMB
The 50km, 102km and 100-mile races at Tarawera Ultra-Trail by UTMB have again attracted some of the world’s top trail runners to Aotearoa, New Zealand, for this weekend’s event.
Beginning in Rotorua, located in the heart of the North Island, the TMiler (100-miles/163km) will begin at 4am NZDT, followed by the T102 (102km) and T50 (50km) at 7am, while the T21 (21km) gets underway at 10am. New in 2026, the T14 (14km) will start on Sunday at 7:30am.
In the men’s TMiler, Sam Harvey (NZL) will line up as the favourite once again after becoming the first Kiwi to win Tarawera’s 100-mile race with victory last year, while compatriots Ruth Croft and Daniel Jones will again be the ones to beat in the T102.
❌ Versailles sold out within hours
The inaugural IRONMAN 70.3 Versailles sold out in under three hours of general registration opening this week, setting a new benchmark as the fastest sell‑out across the 2026 global IRONMAN calendar and the quickest ever IRONMAN 70.3 sell‑out in Europe.
Over 2,500 athletes will race in Versailles this year, with 40% of the field travelling from abroad to enjoy the iconic grounds of the stunning Château de Versailles.
Thibault Vellard, Regional Director of the South-West & Middle East, said: “We are delighted and proud of the enthusiasm generated by this new event. Filling the race in such a short time remains anecdotal, but confirms that the destination meets expectations! Looking forward to July 12.”
❄️ Winter Olympics
Another incredible performance from Sweden’s Frida Karlsson saw her take a second gold medal of the Games as she confirmed her place as the new star of women’s cross-country skiing at Milano-Cortina.
She once again crossed the line ahead of compatriot Ebba Andersson, the duo having achieved a 1-2 earlier this week in the 20km skiathlon. American veteran Jessie Diggins dug deep in what could be her final Olympics to take home the bronze.
Here’s a quick look at the other news in your Winter Olympics wrap-up.
Federica Brignone delivered a rousing performance on home snow, battling back from injury to top the podium in the women’s Super G, while Swiss speeder Franjo von Allmen won his third gold of the Games with victory in the men’s race.
France’s Julia Simon missed one target on her way to victory in the women’s 15km biathlon to claim gold, while Norway’s Johan-Olav Botn upset pre-race favourite Eric Perrot (FRA) thanks to some pinpoint shooting on the range to claim the men’s 20km individual crown on his Olympic debut.
Francesca Lollobrigida powered to her second gold medal at these Games and into the history books as Italy’s most decorated speed skater in Olympic history. The 35-year-old added the women’s 5000m crown to her 3000m gold medal with a time of 6:46.17. She now boasts four Olympic medals in total.
American speed skating superstar Jordan Stolz blazed to victory in the men’s 1000m, clocking an Olympic record time of 1:06.28. The 21-year-old became the first non-Dutch Olympic champion in the men’s 1000m since Vancouver 2010.
For all the latest Winter Olympic news, go to the official website HERE.
PTO will take over the running of all Challenge Family events, apart from Challenge Roth.
🔍 The BIG issue: PTO acquires Challenge Family
The announcement this week that the Professional Triathletes Organisation (PTO) had acquired a majority shareholding in Challenge Family may have come out of the blue, but in many ways it was a move that seemed destined to happen.
When the PTO and World Triathlon joined forces to announce their intention of creating a new Triathlon World Tour, it came with the promise of a race calendar boasting approximately 80 events per year from 2027.
Combining the existing T100 Triathlon Tour, a rebranded World Triathlon Championship Series (WTCS), and World Triathlon Cups, the new Tour, announced in December, will be rebranded as the T100 World Championship Series, the T50 World Championship Series and a newly formed feeder series called Challenger.
The clues were there all along, it seems. The PTO needed to increase the number of races on its calendar, so rather than build them all up from scratch, it made sense for them to find an already popular series of events and rebrand them in its favour.
Hot on the heels of last week’s announcement that Supertri is to restructure its programme – scrapping the team format and revealing a new Pro Series Final worth $800,000 – this now means that the landscape of triathlon will look vastly different come the 2027 season.
However, one thing that will not change is the ever-popular Challenge Roth, which is not included in the package of races handed over to the PTO; it will remain as a unique and proudly independent offering to athletes around the world.
Challenge Roth will not be part of the PTO’s acquisition of all Challenge Family events. [Challenge Family]
Triathlon’s shifting landscape explained
The PTO has acquired a majority shareholding in Challenge Family from Y11 Sports & Media, to make it a part of the newly launched Triathlon World Tour.
A new Triathlon World Tour was announced in December of 2025 by the PTO and the sports governing body World Triathlon, the latest step in a 12-year strategic partnership between the two.
Many of the Challenge Family events are likely to form part of the Challenger Tour, which will be the new feeder series for both the T100 World Championship Series (formerly the T100) and the T50 (formerly the WTCS).
Combined across the different distances and two competition levels – World Championship and Challenger – the Triathlon World Tour will grow to approximately 80 events per year from 2027.
As well as consolidating the traditional standard, sprint and 100km triathlon distances under one unified brand and commercial offering, the PTO will invest in creating a single, consistent broadcast product to provide fans with a true year-round offering.
The vision for a new Tour was born out of key findings from a Deloitte Report, commissioned to ‘reimagine the future of triathlon’. It highlighted a ‘fragmented ecosystem’ and recommended a change from the ‘technically driven model’ to a ‘commercially driven one’.
With Challenge Family now a part of the Triathlon World Tour, it leaves two major players on the middle and long-distance triathlon scene, with the new T100, T50 and Challenger events lined up against IRONMAN’s 70.3 and full-distance races.
The full schedule of more than 35 Challenge Family events in 2026 will continue under the Challenge Family brand as the two companies plan for 2027.
One Challenge event, which is not included on the list of those acquired by the PTO is the hugely popular Challenge Roth. Challenge Family and Challenge Roth are independent organisations and will continue to be so.
The PTO and World Triathlon hope this expansion will not only provide significantly more opportunities for athletes to compete on a global stage but will also unlock greater commercial opportunities for all stakeholders, ensuring a sustainable and thriving future for triathlon at every level.
“Challenge Family’s respected event platform, community-driven ethos and operational expertise make them a natural partner, in addition to a shared vision to transform the sport and unlock its untapped commercial potential”.
PTO CEO Sam Renouf
Are you happy with the new triathlon landscape for 2027?
📆 The week on 247Endurance
The only thing harder than running up a hill when you are leading a race and know that the chasing pack are hot on your heels, is trying to do it in the snow… while on skis.
Norwegian phenomenon Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo won his second gold of the Games in Milan, and footage of him leaving his rivals in the dust went viral.
This clip was posted by our socials master Emily Bell, showing the 29-year-old speeding at more than 10mph up a slope in footage that appeared to defy physics.
⏱️ Coaches corner: Running recovery
Consistency is key to seeing progress in your running. But that consistency can be difficult to maintain if you’re struggling to recover from your weekly long run. Lingering fatigue and muscle soreness can lead to frustration at having to skip training sessions, or even injury if you keep trying to push through.
Recovery is just as important as your training sessions. What you do (or don’t do) after your weekly long run can have an impact on your ability to recover quickly enough, so you can keep making progress. Here are five ways to improve your running recovery.
🙆♂️ Post-run stretch: Don’t just head for the couch; make sure you go through a quick stretching and mobility routine first.
🍽️ Fuelling: Post-run nutrition is just as important as pre-run, and plays a key role in the recovery process. Carbohydrate intake is essential; focus on starchy, complex carbs such as whole grains around meal times, and consume simple carbs, which can be absorbed rapidly around training sessions.
❄️ 🔥Contrast therapy: Subjecting the muscles to ice after exercise can reduce swelling and inflammation. But research has now shown that using ice and heat in tandem can be a better recovery method.
💆♀️ Massage: Sports massage can be an incredibly useful tool to help speed up your recovery – but it can also be a preventative measure to help you avoid injury.
😴 Sleep: For amateur runners juggling training with work and family, sleep can often slip down the list of priorities. But getting good quality sleep is an essential part of allowing your body to recover and repair.
💪 Outside edge of endurance
In the aftermath of his disqualification from the Winter Olympics, supporters of Ukrainian skeleton pilot Vladyslav Heraskevych posted this moving tribute to the athletes who have been killed during Russia’s invasion of their home country.
The IOC banned the 26-year-old after he ignored repeated requests for him not to wear a helmet featuring images of his fallen colleagues, with Heraskevych stating the decision to disqualify him was ‘the price of our dignity’.
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That’s your Split. Until Next Time
Together, we go the distance. — @247_endurance 🏃♂️🚴♀️🏊♂️