Rev3 Announces Age Group Points Series

The Rev3 Triathlon Series, which will have 10 races next year, will be announcing a new twist on age group racing for 2013 with a new points series and championship race. While the details won’t be officially announced until Monday (update: here are the details), we got the inside scoop from Rev3 president Charlie Patten. Check back to Triathlete.com on Monday for more details and the official announcement from Rev3.

Triathlete.com: So what’s this new age group series Rev3 has planned?

Patten: We don’t have all the nitty gritty details finalized, but we want to get it out there because we know people are planning their seasons. But essentially what we’re going to do is a points series where the age groupers have to race at least two of our events to qualify for a championship event. What we’re doing is moving our championship race to our Knoxville venue, which is actually in May, so if this makes sense, we won’t have a championship race next year, but the age groupers will accumulate points for the entire year, then the championship race will actually be in Knoxville in May 2014. Kind of with the idea that we don’t want to compete with Vegas, we don’t want to compete with Kona, we don’t compete with [USAT] Age Group Nationals—we don’t want to compete with everything that’s out there in the fall for a championship race.

Triathlete.com: And when do they start accumulating points?

Patten: Knoxville 2013 is when they can start accumulating points. And we’re basically doing cross-country-style scoring. So if you win your age group, you get one point; if you’re second in your age group you get two points. And then obviously the people with the least amount of points would qualify. And then there’s going to be a specified number of slots per age group, so the 18-24 group might have less spots available in the championship race than would the male 30-34.

Triathlete.com: So what brought about this idea?

Patten: We just want to give age groupers something to work toward. I think that’s kind of what our series was missing, if you will. There was no final anything to work toward. So the whole idea was to add some legitimacy to what we’re offering. People come and race, and it’s great, but a lot of triathletes, obviously as we know, like to have that goal to work toward.

Triathlete.com: Is there any kind of prize purse associated?

Patten: Yeah, those are the details that we need to sort out. But the idea is that we will offer money to the age groupers as prizes. We’re not going to have an overall age group winner—everybody will compete in their age group—but first, second and third in each age group will probably get some kind of financial incentive. We’re just not exactly sure what that’s going to look like yet.

Triathlete.com: How do you think this will affect the future growth of Rev3?

Patten: You know, I don’t know. I’m not even going to hypothesize—I’m not sure. I would hope that it will help. We’ve gotten a lot of feedback online and emails with a championship event—that people would consider doing that versus trying to get to Vegas. So I think that will have an effect—I’m just not sure what the effect will be. Honestly, let’s face it, only 10 percent of the triathletes out there think that they can qualify for Vegas or Kona. I hope [it will have an effect], but I have no expectations.

For more information, visit Rev3tri.com.