Ironman takes over Copenhagen
Ironman announced today it bought YWC Copenhagen, the privately held company which organizes triathlons and endurance sports events in Denmark – including the KMD Challenge Copenhagen and KMD Challenge Aarhus events.
The Ironman media release said that a date for the renamed Ironman Copenhagen and Ironman 70.3 Aarhus races would be announced in two weeks.
Andrew Messick, Ironman CEO said, “Ironman is committed to growth in Europe as there is great passion for the sport of triathlon here. YWC has a strong line-up of triathlons and we are excited to help advance the sport in Denmark.”
Jeppe Rindom, Chairman of the Board of YWC Sports, made a statement which carefully did not mention the Challenge organization. “The two triathlon events in Copenhagen and Aarhus are both one of a kind with huge international potential,” said Rindom. “Our ambition has always been to create events of international and world-class scale. We believe putting the Ironman brand to the two events will make them fulfill just that.”
Challenge CEO Felix Walchshöfer issued a statement that implied that his group might have contractual objections to the takeover: "The case around Challenge Aarhus and Challenge Copenhagen is currently with our legal team, so we are unable to give further comment. However, while it is sad for us to lose two races, when looking at the big picture, the Challenge Family has gained many exciting new races and it remains a very positive time of growth for Challenge Family throughout the world.”
The move closely resembles Ironman's strategic buyout of Australia’s USM events and thus rebranding the popular Challenge Cairns event as Ironman Cairns early in 2012. From the beginning, USM owned and ran the Cairns event under license from the Challenge group. While Ironman CEO Andrew Messick offered to keep Cairns a Challenge-licensed event, Walchshöfer refused to continue the arrangement with an event owned by the World Triathlon Corporation. Later that year, Challenge negotiated a deal with the City of Penticton, which declined to renew its longstanding contract with the WTC, to replace the historic Ironman Canada with Challenge Penticton starting in 2013. Ironman countered by establishing an Ironman Canada event in the British Columbia resort of Whistler. On May 7 of this year, Challenge announced it was back in business in Australia with three new half Ironman races in Forster, Melbourne and Bateman’s Bay.
The jousting between the World Triathlon Corporation and the Challenge Family now run by CEO Felix Walchshöfer goes back a long way. When Ironman took away the historic Ironman Germany from Roth in 2001, many thought the great race would soon die without the Kona slots. But former PR director Herbert Walchshöfer dug in, took over race director duties from Detlef Kuhnel, and re-established the race as Quelle Challenge Roth. Challenge Roth soon equaled its Ironman original in quality and increased the size of its sold-out fields. When Herbert Walchshöfer died in 2005, his son Felix took over as CEO and built a worldwide series of Ironman-distance and half Ironman-distance events around the world – virtually the only rival of the powerful Ironman brand.
