Why do some of the ITU athletes have to race under the ITU banner and wear an ITU uniform and not their countries? I noticed BARBARA RIVEROS DIAZ had her regular swimsuit covered today.
Barry mentioned it during the race… she normally races for chile. He speculated that there was something wrong with her regular suit that didn’t pass regulations and she had to wear one of the itu suits on hand instead.
Sometimes athletes wear them when they are changing countries or if their country doesn’t have a triathlon federation but I don’t think that was the case here.
Some also race under ITU when they are transitioning nationalities
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Hmm I remember reading about the ITU “team”.
Each year the ITU “sponsors” a handful of up and coming athletes. However I would not consider Diaz to be up and coming. She’s pretty high up there.
For that year they represent the ITU. Their suit will display ITU, as well as their country in results would be ITU.
Basically its a ticket to go from half pro (working and training) to full time training to become a greater athlete through the assistance of the ITU. Still waiting for my invitation lol.
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You may have to provide some more info on this ITU “team”, or you may just be joking (cant tell). There used to be an “gold group” of athletes, but they weren’t ITU team, they were just the top athletes who were protected and essentially guaranteed entry into every WTS start list.
The reason you’ll see “ITU” beside an athlete is when they are transitioning to another federation and/or if an athlete has an uniform issue (uniform lost in shipping, uniform is damaged few days before etc.).
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No, Brooks, there at least was at one point an ITU Development thing, where it was also specific to certain countries (ie, it wasn’t athletes from the UK, Canada, US, Australia, NZ, etc), not sure if it’s still around. However, the athletes still raced for their home nationalities I believe, but there was some level of support for it, maybe leading up to the Olympics if I am remembering right?
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