NEWS PENTICTON WESTERN
Wooden crossing guard drives home message to parents
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Penticton’s tourism numbers cool off over the summer
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VOL.46 ISSUE 77
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3 page
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2012
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entertainment Juggling art in public en
Clas Classic sic i llures uress 19 ttea teams eam ms sports OK Bass Cl
spaces at Reimagine
and gets love from participants
CITY FINALIZING CHALLENGE DEAL Steve Kidd Western News Staff
Mark Brett/Western News
OFF TO THE RACES — Axel Merckx (front) of Kelowna is chased by Peachland’s Evan Guthrie at the start of the Test for Humanity mountain bike race in Summerland Sunday. Proceeds from the event go to Canadian Humanitarian for its work in Ethiopia. For more on the race see Page 18.
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Negotiations to ¿nalize a deal with the Challenge Family to bring their long-distance triathlon to Penticton should be complete within the month. According to city manager Annette Antoniak, the city is in the ¿nal stages of sealing the deal with the Challenge Family, based on the binding letter of intent they negotiated last month. “What we are ¿nalizing now with the society is the licensing agreement, all the little operational details of putting on the race and how the Challenge Family does things,” said Antoniak, adding that while the course is the same, Challenge puts on a festival as well as having certain expectations for pro athletes and the prize money. Since the change from Ironman to Challenge was announced last month, city representatives have been talking about how the new race was going to be of greater economic bene¿t to the region. Antoniak said the city still isn’t able to release full details of the deal, but did say that Penticton will still be putting the same amount on the table in terms of in-kind donations, which includes items such as road closures and bleachers, and is estimated to cost about $105,000 for this year. But another cost, a marketing fee imposed in 2009 by the World Triathlon Corporation, is de¿nitely not going to be part of the deal. “We will not have a marketing fee; that will no longer happen,” said Antoniak. “There is a licensing fee that was negotiated as part of the letter of intent, very reasonable, less than the marketing fee was, that will be paid for the by the new society.” The licence to run a Challenge Family longdistance triathlon will be held by the newly formed Penticton Triathlon Race Society. Once the deal is ¿nal, Antoniak expects the society to
hold a public meeting to discuss the changes. “It is the full intent of the chair, Paul McCann, to have a public meeting,” she said. By then, Antoniak continued, the society’s structure should also be in place. From the business side of operations, the major difference between the Challenge and the Ironman is that the community, in this case the race society, owns the race. “The society will have control over the merchandising and the sponsorship, which never stayed here,” said Antoniak, explaining that in addition to the licensing fee, Challenge Family will also be collecting a small percentage of the registration. Penticton Mayor Dan Ashton said their understanding was that almost all Ironman registration fees went into funding the race. “It’s the merchandizing and the sponsorships that are the valuable commodity to somebody putting on a race, and that is now what the community, through the governing body, now owns,” said Ashton. “I think it is the intent of the society to engage local merchants and local suppliers.” That means, he said, unique merchandise for Challenge Penticton, quite different from the way the World Triathlon Corporation handled Ironman merchandising. “It’s always been kind of a cookie cutter,” said Ashton, explaining that he has been told that identical merchandise, barring a name change, is available at each of the Ironman events. Ashton and Antoniak admit that this seems to be an awfully sweet deal for Penticton. The Challenge Family, they said, was eager to place a race here. “They wanted North America, and they wanted Penticton. They had 30 other communities, they told us, that contacted them wanting the race in their community,” said Antoniak. “But they particularly wanted Penticton, because of our history, because of our volunteers and because of our community.
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