Challenge Family today released the mid-year prize money earnings of the top 20 male and female professional athletes racing Olympic and long course races.
The full report, which features just under 700 athletes, was generated as part of Challenge Family's commitment to developing the professionalism of the sport. It follows on from the successful Pro Athlete Forum conducted at Challenge Bahrain in December where this was one of the topics discussed.
At the forum, the majority of athletes felt that triathlon should adopt a similar system that is applied at the FedExCup as part of the PGA Tour, a world ranking system determined by points.
Challenge Family responded by undertaking the project in-house and has been tracking the earnings of every professional athlete for the past 28 weeks inclusive of all Challenge Family, WTC and ITU events, together with key independent races.
"Challenge Family 's commitment to raising the standards for professional athletes in triathlon is unwavering and the need for an inclusive world ranking system is a step toward that goal to present as a unified sport," said Challenge Family CEO, Zibi Szlufcik. "Triathlon needs to move into line with premier sports like golf and tennis with a world ranking system. It not only rewards the best performed athletes, but provides a simple explanation to non-traditional media and the general public."
Challenge Family will work towards modifications in line with ITU and having this adopted as an officially recognised world ranking system for the industry.
Challenge Family will update the prize money ranking's on a weekly basis. A summary is available for viewing in the Pro Athlete section of the Challenge Family web site www.challenge-family.com, which also profiles triathlon's key elite athletes.
You can take a look at the top-20 mens and womens lists here.
