CEO's Column: Super League Continues To Deliver Progress, Break Down Barriers And Be A Force For Change

Reflecting on Super League Triathlon’s 2022 Championship Series I think our Co-Founder Leonid Boguslavsky actually summed it perfectly when he said it seems like we have been around for a lot longer than four seasons.

That is testament to our consistency. We are a disrupter and a team that continues to break barriers, to grow and outperform. To expand to eight events over the year, and five in the Championship Series, is a massive step and we will not stop pushing the boundaries.

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This year we added two new venues in the Series and have enjoyed consistency with the three others.

They all have a specific DNA in terms of viewership experience, but also in terms of racing experience, which is ultimately what we want. One of Super League’s core values is that we are unpredictable, so we need the different formats and we need the different venues; some cold, some hot, some flat, some hilly, some with waves, some without waves. We are starting to have a very nice mixture now.

Highlights include going to France, and as we hoped and expected we had a big interest with many thousands of supporters around the course in Toulouse, which now puts us in an ideal position to continue to grow that event and go back multiple years.

NEOM has been in the making since 2019 and it also delivered. It delivered visually and it delivered in challenging the athletes in a very different way with heat, wind and gravel.

I understand that going to NEOM is a controversial decision, but I think we have a unique opportunity to be the first movers in breaking down barriers.

If in life you have different positions you can acknowledge that and work to bring them closer to where you want to be, or you drive a hard line and continue to isolate, which I don’t see will ever improve a situation.

With us going to Saudi Arabia we have been very clear about what the sport stands for and what we are there to achieve, which is equality for men and women. The women got the same prize money, the same television time and went out into the region and trained in public in the same clothing they wear everywhere else. We went into the communities in Jeddah and engaged. We had our pros coach young girls and boys of school age, inspiring them, showing them the values of our sport and equality, and we worked with the Saudi Triathlon Federation on growing the sport. We also had the milestone of having the first Israeli to participate in a Saudi sports event, breaking down another barrier.

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We are pushing the boundaries to bring change, and I think that is a much stronger and more constructive approach than isolating and opposing, and we see that Saudi and NEOM are working with us to make that happen on every front.

For Super League the pace of growth we have set over the past few years has become a norm, and it has moved us from an experiment to becoming an established player, disrupting the sport. I see us continuing this aggressive growth, and we already have exciting developments in the pipeline for the next few years that will deliver that.

We will continue to progress, to push boundaries and be a force for change.