Frequently asked questions

We closely follow government advice & advice from the bodies we deal with: British Triathlon, British Cycling & Run Britain. You can also read our Covid-19 Policy document.

We now offer RFID & NFC based Chip Timing to other race organisers. See Crunch Timing We also have a range of event kit available for hire. We’re happy to discuss your other event management requirements. Just get in touch via our Contact Form.

We’re doing our best to minimise our environmental impact. Here are a few of our initiatives.

Trees Not Tees
For all the events where we include a t-shirt, we’re now offering the option to plant a tree instead. We’ve partnered with Treesnottees.com to make this happen.

Avoiding Single Use Plastics
We use paper cups designed to be fully recycled back into high grade paper.

Medals now optional
We know quite a lot of competitors are not interested in finishers medals so they are now optional. We make a £2 charity donation for every medal not selected.

Swim hats on request
We still supply swim hats for our open water swim events as they help the water safety teams keep track of swimmers. However for all our pool events, swim hats are now on request to reduce wastage.

Zip Ties & waste
We only use reusable zip ties. We minimise single use plastics & sort rubbish for recycling after our events.

Food is not wasted
For events, such as our cycling sportives, where we’re know for our excellent feed stations, all left over food goes to the local foodbank.

Reducing Car use
In Devon where most of our events take place this is easier said than done. However at our Burrator 10K running race we offer a £5 discount to anyone who commits to walking or cycling to the event. We’ll be looking to add this to other events in the future.

To read more about our sustainability policies read our article

What Triathlon is all about?  Click here for our Guide to Junior Triathlons

Or to find a local junior triathlon club use the Club Find on the British Triathlon website – www.britishtriathlon.org/clubs

If you can’t find a local triathlon club with a junior section the next best thing is to get your child involved with the local swimming club, running club or cycling club. For example Mid Devon Cycling Club offers excellent junior bike coaching at Torbay Velopark for children aged 7 and above.

We now have a shop selling our clothing, gift vouchers etc  sportivaevents.co.uk/shop

Please see our tshirt sizing chart below.

Sorry, we are not able to offer refunds as we start to incur costs as soon as we announce an event. However we now offer free name changes up to 7 days before an event with our booking software Eventrac and the chance to transfer yourself to a different event.

Just scroll to the bottom of your email receipt and click the link which says  ‘online receipt’. You will then see options to transfer your entry to another event or another competitor.

For all deferrals you must contact us a minimum of 7 days before the event and transfers are subject to an admin fee of £8 plus any difference in price.

We’ve now enabled Refund Protect on all our events. That means for just 10 percent of your entry fee you can now insure against not being able to attend due to illness, injury, bereavement etc! Read what’s covered when you sign up.

Yes you can. If you are transferring to a more expensive option (eg moving from GO TRI to Sprint you will need to pay the difference. There is no partial refund if you are transferring to a shorter race.  Just scroll to the bottom of your email receipt from Eventrac and click the link which says  ‘online receipt’. You will then see options to transfer your entry.

We are also happy to transfer your entry to a different event for a charge of £8 provided you contact us a minimum of 7 days before the date of the event.

For triathlons & duathlons your age group or your child’s age group is calculated from your age on 31st December in the year of the competition. If, for example, you are 39 but turn 40 on 30th December you will compete as a Vet 40 for the whole of that year. Similarly if your child is 7 but turns 8 in December they are eligible to enter any Tristar Start event.

For events on open roads the minimum age is 15 or 17 for the longer Standard/Olympic distance events. However for our Pool-based triathlons the minimum age is 8 by 31st Dec in the year of competition or 5 for the Torbay Triathlons. And at our Donut Duathlon we have a mini duathlon with a bike or scoot followed by a run for children aged 3-7.

Just to confuse matters England Athletics (under whose rules we run most of our running events) use age on the day of the race instead of age at the end of the year.

Here is a summary of all the age groups (all ages are on 31st Dec of year of competition). Distances increase as children progress through TriStar. On our registration form just choose Tristar or Novice & you’ll be automatically allocated to the correct category. The Novice events are aimed at children who are less  confident swimmers or trying triathlon for the first time.

Mini Duathlon ages 3-7 (only at our Donut Duathlon)
Mini Tri age 5, 6 & 7 (only at our Tavistock & Torbay Triathlons)
Tristar Start aged 8 (includes 8 year old novices)
Tristar 1 – aged 9-10
Tristar 2 – aged 11-12
Tristar 3 – aged 13-14
Youth – aged 15-16
Junior – aged 17-19
Novice 1 – aged 9-10 (same distances as Tristar Start)
Novice 2 – aged 11-14 (same distances as Tristar 2)
Senior – aged 20-39
Vet 40 – aged 40-49
Vet 50 – aged 50-59
Vet 60 – aged 60-69
Vet 70 – aged 70+

Just CLICK HERE if you’d just like to join our mailing list. We won’t pass your name or email address on to anyone else!

We don’t offer season tickets but do offer discounts of up to 25 percent if you book two or more events at the same time.

We are not a charity but do plan to partner with local charities on our events. We’ve just announced our first partnership with Exeter Deaf Academy and the Exmouth Triathlon. We are offering free fund raising places and also making a donation for every volunteer the Exeter Deaf Academy provides. Click here to find out more.

All our triathlons are British Triathlon affiliated and listed on britishtriathlon.org/. If you do not have annual membership you will automatically have bought a day membership when you registered (£6 or £1 if you are aged under 20 on 31st December of the year of competition. The exception is our GO TRI /Beginners events which do not require a day membership. To keep entry costs down our Donut Duathlon and our Open Water Swims are not British Triathlon affiliated which means you do not need to purchase a day membership to take part. The Donut Duathlon is run under British Triathlon rules however.

Dogs on leads are permitted at all our events except for the Dartmouth Triathlon at Blackpool Sands. Blackpool Sands does not allow any dogs during the summer season.

We try and avoid cut-off times to make our events as inclusive as possible. However for some of our longer events we have to have a cut off time for practical reasons. These are clearly stated, where applicable, on the relevant event pages.

There is a limit set for each race based on parking capacity and the nature of the routes.

All our races are professionally chip-timed with RFID chips and offer splits for each component of the race and for T1, the first transition and T2, the second transition. Results are available on the day.

Organisers reserve the right to change, shorten or even cancel the races  in the event of extreme bad weather. However we will do all we can to go ahead and so far we have never cancelled a triathlon or duathlon (despite some challenging conditions)

Prizes & awards
For 2023 we are awarding prizes in 5 year categories. That will be for the whole podium provided we have at least six entries in the category four weeks before the event. Otherwise the prize will be for the category winner only.
We also have special medals for all Tristar and GoTri categories. Provided we have at least 150 entries in a race we will also avoid Prizes to the top three senior men & women.

We operate a one prize per person rule so if the first overall finisher is a vet he/she will only receive the overall prize and the 1st vet prize will go to the first eligible vet. We aim to publish a list of prizes before the start of each race.

Make sure you collect your number and timing from registration, no later than 30 minutes prior to the start of your race.

Parking information is included in the race manuals & on each event page.

For your safety, music players and headphones may not be worn.

We normally post results first on our Facebook page but you will find them on our Results Page.

We post a selection of photos to our Facebook page but the full list of photos are available from free download from our Results Page normally the day after the event.

Where ever possible we try to off a GO TRI Beginners race alongside the races for more experienced competitors. We now have a Beginner Triathlon Page that lists all our GO TRI events or other events that are suitable for beginners – sportivaevents.co.uk/beginners-triathlon/

And don’t forget for our pool based events you can swim any stroke and stop every length if you wish. You definitely don’t need to be superfit to take part! See our 10 Tips for First Time Triathletes

We’re based in Devon so not all our GO TRI events are flat. So here are our GO TRI & beginner-friendly races with ratings based on difficulty

Donut Duathlon – Very Easy: flat, fast & traffic free

Torbay Triathlon Spring –  Very Easy: flat, fast & traffic free

Exmouth Triathlon – Easy: moderate climb on the bike leg but run is flat

Dartmouth Triathlon (formerly the South Hams Triathlon) – Hard: the 20K bike is hilly although the run is quite flat

English Riviera Triathlon – Easy: gentle climb on short bike and a couple of tough little hills on the run

Roadford Lakes Triathlon – Moderate: lake swim, rolling hills on the bike, mainly flat run

Torbay Triathlon Autumn – Very Easy: flat, fast & traffic free

Dawlish Triathlon – Easy: sea swim and then a pretty flat bike & run.

Devon Duathlon – Fairly hard: two climbs on the bike & a hilly run

Tavistock Triathlon – Easy/fairly hard: kids course is flat. Adult courses have some climbs on the bike & run.

We do not normally send out any information in the post (with the exception of the Burrator 10K). Occasionally emails do not get through so please email or Whatsapp us & we’ll resend the email confirmation. Race packs with numbers etc are collected on the morning of the race (and usually available the afternoon before). We publish Start Lists the week before the event (usually on the Tuesday). Race Manuals are sent out at around the same time. You can also view the Race Manuals by scrolling down the individual event pages. Here’s the full list