| 03/18/2001 |
John Walker and Katherine Williams have announced
a three-year agreement with bicycle component and accessory maker Profile
Design for title sponsorship of their well-respected elite triathlete ranking
system.
Profile Design Multisport Rankings will debut on February 1, 2001. The rankings
of more than 1000 elite long course, short course, and duathlon multisport
athletes now found at www.triathlonlive.com
will soon be in abbreviated versions in multisport's premiere publications,
Triathlete and Inside Triathlon, and at www.active.com,
the Internet's top participatory sports site.
Sponsorship of Profile Design Multisport Rankings suits Profile Design on
two levels - it gives the sport a much needed comprehensive ranking system
and provides a leg-up in the formation of an industry roundtable to advise
on further development of The Rankings and other issues of mutual interest.
Indeed, the Profile Design Multisport Rankings will be the focal point of
the "Triathlon Industry Council (TIC):" a non-political consortium of athletes,
event directors, media, and industry players soon to be defined. It will
follow the lead of other organizations that have aided the growth of their
sports outside of -- but parallel to, and often in concert with -- those
sports' governing bodies.
Profile Design's Sports Marketing Manager, Mark Vandermolen said: "As our
sport grows we felt we had a responsibility to look beyond our own interests,
to see if we could do something to promote the sport, not just ourselves.
It seemed to us that this was the perfect vehicle, and the Profile Design
Multisport Rankings represents the catalyst for all these things to come
together."
Walker's and Williams' rankings -- ongoing since March, 1998 -- is the consensus
best system of ranking multisport athletes over a range of distances and
disciplines. Williams, publisher of the Triathlon Digest e-newsletter and
Triathlon 2001 directory, gathers results from all over the world: Rankings
in 2000 consisted of results gleaned from almost 1000 races. Walker devises
the algorithms and generates the ranking.
"I wanted to create a system where the athletes decide which races are the
most prestigious by toeing the starting line," said Walker. "Katherine had
the results and the familiarity with the athletes - pieces I could not provide.
We have been working together ever since. With more eyes on the system,
I hope the feedback we receive will enable us to improve it still further."
The web home of Profile Design Multisport Rankings will undergo a facelift
during the month of February to reflect its new sponsor affiliation, and
to aid online portals who've agreed to them.
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