Triathlon Affiliation

International Triathlon Union (ITU) and Pan American Triathlon Confederation (PATCO)

The International Triathlon Union is the world governing body for the Olympic sport of Triathlon and all related MultiSport disciplines: Duathlon, Aquathlon and Winter Triathlon. ITU was founded in 1989 at the first ITU Congress in Avignon, France and has maintained its headquarters in Vancouver, Canada since then. It now has over 120 affiliated National Federations around the world and is the youngest International Federation in the Olympics. Triathlon was awarded Olympic status in 1994. ITU is proudly committed to supporting the development of the sport worldwide through strong relationships with continental and national federations, working with its partners to offer a balanced sport development programme from grass roots to a high performance level.

For more information, visit: www.triathlon.org

Triathlon Structure

ITU is divided worldwide into five (5) continental Regional Organisations (RO’s):

• Africa
• Europe
• Americas (being the region comprising North America, Central America, South America and the Caribbean)
• Oceania
• Asia

ITU run many races each year and can be found on their website (http://www.triathlon.org/)

Each year, one of their races is designated the World Championships….. and every 4-years, there are the Olympics!

There was the Youth Olympics in Singapore …. And Triathlon was one of the sports.

We are part of #3 – the Americas – which is governed by PATCO (Pan American Triathlon Confederation).

The USA, Canada, and Mexico are the ‘big boys’ of PATCO, basically because triathlon developed in these countries before the current PATCO was officially formed, although the President is from Argentina.

The PATCO Congress is held once a year, during the PANAN Championships.

PATCO run a number of races each year and, depending on the level, they are either

World Champ. Series, Elite Cup, World Cup, or Panama Cup.

At all of these races, there will be:

• Olympic race for Elite category
• Olympic race for Elite Under 23 years category
• Sprint race for Junior category (16 – 19)
• Olympic and Sprint races for all other Age-Groups.

Every four years, there is also the PANAM Games and the CAC Games …. Which both also have in Triathlon but only Open category over Olympic distance.

Under PATCO, at the CAC level, is UCECATRI which is the triathlon organization at this level. Below this level, we have the NF’s that make up the individual associations.

Because UCECATRI and PATCO are “Spanish” dominated, the small Caribbean NF’s have been trying to support their smaller associations and we have an informal Caribbean Triathlon Union (CTU) at the moment. This is made-up currently of:

Antigua (ATA) Owen Clashing (abtri_lets@yahoo.com or owenaclashingsr@hotmail.com)
Barbados (BFIT) Peter Gibbs (http://users.sunbeach.net/users/bfit/)
Grenada (GTA) Clare Morrall (http://www.grenadatriathlon.com/)
St.Kitts & Nevis (SKN) Winston Crooke (http://www.neviscycleclub.com/)
Trinidad (TTTA) Ian Gooding (http://triathlon.co.tt/)
Guadeloupe (LTG) Felix Dinane (http://www.premiumwanadoo.com/triguad/)
Martinique (LTM) Serge Tiburn (http://fnx1kxja.imingo.net/triathlon/)

We try to send, at least, two triathletes to each others races and thus push up the number of overseas competitors

We designate one of our events as the Caribbean Triathlon Union (CTU) Championships and the first was in Antigua in 2008.