Decision time for IMTX
It is fish-or-cut-bait for the Lone Star State’s on-and-off Ironman bike course. Whether Ironman will stage the May 14, 2016 event or cancel it will be known today, tomorrow or very soon thereafter according to sources close to the race. It would mean a black eye for Ironman to cancel a second regional championship in one year (its 2016 Asia-Pacific Championship race in Melbourne, to have taken place last month, was canceled late in 2015).
The bike course used in prior years was nixed by the commissioner of the county district where most of the course existed. At The Woodlands Township Board of Directors meeting last month options for alternative bike routes were proposed by Scott Langen, IRONMAN’s Southwest Operations Manager. Political leaders, most notably U.S. House Ways and Means Chairman (and a four-sport high school star who played varsity baseball during his college career at University of South Dakota) Kevin Brady from Texas, have labored to get commissioners from Harris, Montgomery and Waller counties to work together to produce a proper bike course for the event.
The bike course options are down to two. The Woodlands can host a 5-lap bike course inside its own confines. The course is wide and relatively safe with only right-hand turns. But it is 5 laps and means a densely packed course, with fast riders overtaking slower riders.
The other is a 1-loop course taking cyclists into nearby Harris County. The determination will be made chiefly by County Commissioner Jack Cagle who, if this course is approved, will have saved the race through a hurry-up process of vetting a very long course. This would be the most desirable option, but complicating matters are the recent (and continuing) torrential rains in the area. Sheriff and other assets required to vet a course are presumably stretched, with a go or no-go decision at hand.
A decision is expected one way or the other in a very few days, perhaps even hours.
