Courtesy: USAT

At the end of the first quarter of 2005, USA Triathlon's membership and sanctioning numbers continued to improve and impress.

USA Triathlon's annual membership, which stood at 53,254 at the end of 2004, has increased to 56,593 as of the end of March.

Also, the numbers of gold and silver members have each increased over 2004. By April 1 of 2004, USA Triathlon had 19 gold members and 115 silver members. In 2005, those numbers increased to 30 gold members and 205 silver members.

"The benefits associated with gold and silver memberships have improved and we think people are responding," said USA Triathlon Marketing Manager Kelley Paulus. "We continue to work with sponsors to improve the benefits to all our members."

Event sanctioning numbers are also increasing. By April 1, 2005, USAT had sanctioned 606 multi-sport events, which were comprised of 793 races (many events consist of more than one race).

Those numbers represent a 12 percent increase in the number of events (695 by April 1, 2004) and a 9 percent increase in the number of races (553 by April 1, 2004) over 2004.

There are 181 first-year events that have been sanctioned so far in 2005, a 2 percent increase over 2004. There is a 52 percent increase in the number of established races that are sanctioning with USAT for the first time in 2005.

"We are seeing a lot of established events add a race or two," said Kathy Matejka, USA Triathlon's event sanctioning manager. "We are also seeing established events start to sanction with us for the first time, a very encouraging statistic."