Riding Mountain Triathlon returns to normal

When you’ve been through what Riding Mountain Triathlon race director Dave Lipchen has experienced in the last few years, normal is a pretty good feeling.

The East St. Paul resident, who runs the Windburn Multi-Sport Academy, took over the race from Ellis and Deb Crowston in 2018 and lost the 2020 and 2021 races to the pandemic. Due to the zebra-mussel situation that led to a boat ban on Clear lake, he was forced to make 2024’s event a duathlon because he couldn’t put rescue craft in the water to look after swimmers who might be in distress.

In 2025, the race couldn’t put a full contingent of boats in the water, so instead he relied on kayakers and paddle boarders with one park boat in reserve.

“The race is back to the full support we had in the past,” Lipchen said. “I have four manned motorboats in the water with lifeguards and a race official in one of the boats to watch and manage the swim.”

They’ll also have seven or eight kayakers in the water, with the Brandon Search and Rescue team on hand.

“We are very fortunate the boats are back in the water because that does bring up the safety level and the comfort level of hosting the race in such deep water and potentially volatile water,” Lipchen said. “It doesn’t take much to get the water whipped up pretty good. We just want to make sure we can provide as much safety as we can to the athletes to make sure everyone has a good time.”

The province’s oldest race has been a staple at the park since it was started in 1986 by Laurie Penton, and until recently, was an annual occurrence. Beyond the COVID years, it took a one-year hiatus in 2016 as Highway 10 was repaved.

On Wednesday evening, Lipchen had 391 athletes registered, with the final numbers expected to exceed 400. That’s a nice jump from the 2025 field of 344 athletes and a massive change from the duathlon year in 2024 when a full triathlon couldn’t be staged and the race drew fewer than 150.

Still, that leaves Lipchen with lots of room for growth.

The Crowstons assumed control from Winnipegger Dave Lyon in 2007, and their continued innovation led them to set the record for the largest race in Manitoba history when they drew 542 athletes in 2012.

They also hold second place, and Lipchen eclipsed 500 in 2019 to hold third.

“Basically after this year, we can start chasing our 2019 numbers again,” Lipchen said. “Maybe we can potentially catch Ellis and Deb’s record. That’s definitely a goal, to catch my mentor when it comes to putting on races.”

The official deadline to enter is Friday midnight, although it might be possible for a couple of athletes to register on race morning. He notes the latter puts a lot of strain on race staff and he would prefer to avoid it.

Thursday’s forecast for Saturday at Wasagaming showed a high of 20 but also rain, which certainly wouldn’t be ideal.

“The weather is something we can’t control,” Lipchen said. “We just need to have our protocols in place to make sure we can manage it.”

The triathlon normally features Olympic (1.5-kilometre swim, 40-km bike, 10-km run), Sprint (750-metre swim, 20-km bike, five-km run), Super Sprint (300-metre swim, 10-km bike, 2.5-km run) and Sprint duathlon (2.5-km run, 20-km bike, five-km run) races for competitors. There are also swim-bike Aquabike options available.

The course, which includes Clear Lake, Highway 10 and area roads for the run, hasn’t changed this year but the race has made a significant investment in branded crowd control gates for the transition zone and leading in and out to the bike and run courses.

While triathlons have a lot of moving parts to organize, this is now Lipchen’s seventh year putting the pieces together. Experience is a great teacher, but he admits there are still surprises every year.

“It’s not ever easy, you just become a little more fluid when it comes to getting all the different steps down,” Lipchen said. “You become a little more efficient at getting through those steps better and better each year and making sure you’re not missing anything where there’s a big scramble. Every year, regardless of what anyone tells you, there is always going to be that X factor of stuff that you have to deal with last minute.

“So far we’ve been very smooth.”

Even so, there have been challenges with stuff that didn’t arrive and time, and he couldn’t set up the massive transition area where the bikes are racked until this morning.

Triathlons are volunteer-intensive operations, with a bare-bones minimum of 40 volunteers needed on race day. Lipchen noted the perfect number would be between 80 and 100, and last year he had about 80. This year, he already has 85, with 10 to 15 more usually showing up to lend a hand on race day.

“We’re very lucky that’s something we have for this race every year,” Lipchen said of his group and experienced and new volunteers. “That’s exciting.”

Traditionally, the main race was staged on Saturday, with a Kids of Steel race that allowed youngsters to try a shorter version of the sport held on Sunday. But due to safety concerns on the bike course, Lipchen stopped running the Sunday event.

Instead, athletes as young as 12 — as of Dec. 31 of the race year — who are good swimmers can compete in the Super Sprint on Saturday. At 16, teens can compete in the Sprint, and at 18 they can race the Olympic distance.

“It was tough because I have younger guys on my team who are still under the minimum age of 12 to compete in the Super Sprint, but it’s definitely the safer way to go so that was the call,” Lipchen said. Even without the youngsters, the Riding Mountain Triathlon is once again growing. He said it’s a relief to have things trending the right way after six years of uncertainty.

“The rebound is good,” Lipchen said. “It’s exciting to start seeing. Hopefully it continues to get back to normalcy so that it becomes something that while it’s stressful, is not stressful when you don’t know what is going to happen each year and you don’t know if something you do this year will even work for next year. It’s awesome this is the second year it’s all moving in the right direction.

“Last year was a good start, and now the confidence has come back.”

» pbergson@brandonsun.com