Mens Triathlon Should Also Be an NCAA Sport
Written by Briahna Gibson, Former Student on Friday, January 16, 2015
Recently, within the past year, a big change has happened that leaves multi-sport athletes excited for the future. On December 5, 2014, USA Triathlon announced it will give $2.6 million worth of grants for Women's Triathlon Emerging Sport in order to help the establishment of NCAA women's varsity triathlon teams. The three-year grant is available to help with funding for Division I, II and III institutions/colleges to help grow women's triathlon programs at the NCAA level.
This is the most exciting news I have ever heard. Triathlons have been something I have been interested in for a while and when I found out that i might be able to do them in college, I was ecstatic.
There’s one fall back. Men’s triathlon has not been added to the NCAA. It was strategically decided to become a fall sport. Since it will be a fall sport, there’s football for the men and now there’s triathlon for women. Therefore adding this would create an equal amount of sports per season for both genders. I think that the NCAA should consider adding men’s triathlon too. For several reasons.
Triathlon is not only a women’s sport. There is no inequality in triathlons. Men should have the right to do triathlons in college, because it’s awesome. There have already been several schools with intramural triathlon clubs that are very competitive. If they could just add Men’s triathlon, it would make things a lot better for those clubs, because the athletes that race for the clubs could possibly get scholarships.
Women and men worldwide, have sparked up an interest in the sport of triathlon. It’s popularity is growing very fast and rapidly. It’s very common for women and men to train together. With my experience, it helps athletes grow stronger and get faster. If they added men’s triathlon, then they would all get to train together, motivate each other and help push each other to be the best they can.
