Grand Prix de Triathlon


The Grand Prix de Triathlon defines itself as the most outstanding triathlon event in France and attracts numerous international elite triathletes hired by French clubs.
The Grand Prix should not be confused with the Coupe de France des Clubs, which is not a circuit but a one-day national championship and in which the clubs admitted to the Grand Prix are obliged to take part.

Organisation

In 2011, the circuit consisted of the following five triathlons: Nice, Dunkirk, Paris, Tours or Tourangeaux, and La Baule.
In 2012 the following five towns will host the Grand Prix:
According to the official Réglementation Sportive, there should be 16 male and 14 female teams. At the end of the year 2010, however, three female teams and two male teams withdrew.
Beauvais Triathlon decided to boycott the Grand Prix when the French Triathlon Federation canceled the traditional Triathlon de Beauvais and replaced it with the Triathlon de Nice. As it seems, there were tensions between FFTRI president Philippe Lescure and Beauvais manager Laurent Chopin, who is reported to return to soccer. Besides, French clubs obviously face increasing difficulties hiring foreign elite stars. Two of the Beauvais elite stars, Andrea Hewitt and Delphine Py-Bilot, moved to Poissy and Charleville respectively. Fred Belaubre and Charlotte Morel, however, took a break.

Qualified Teams 2012

According to the current Réglementation Sportive, there should be again 16 male and 14 female teams. Compared to 2011, the situation has improved and there are now 13 female teams. However, it remains to be seen if the newcomers can catch up to the old elite clubs.
Laurent Vidal changed to Beauvais Triathlon and therefore does not take part in the Grand Prix 2012. Frédéric Belaubre, however, left Beauvais Triathlon in order to take part again in the Grand Prix, this time for Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines.
16 male teams:
13 female teams:
Each of the 16 male and 14 female teams nominates seven triathletes for the whole season, of whom five triathletes actually have to take part in the race.
In 2011 at least one triathlete in each team must be French.
For each of the five competitions the ranking of the clubs is determined by the three so-called triathlètes classants l'equipe, i.e. the individual positions of the three best triathletes of each club are added and the club with the lowest sum is the winner, and so forth.
The ranks of the rest of each team are irrelevant. For the whole circuit, however, the clubs are assigned points on the basis of the club ranking of each individual competition. The best male team, for instance, receives 20 points for the first place in one competition etc.
For the season 2011 the French triathlon Federation FFTRI was not only unable to secure the right number of clubs, some clubs, especially female elite teams, seem to have difficulties in hiring five elite triathletes for each race:
In general, it seems that the official Rules are not strictly applied. E.g. at the official podium ceremony in La Baule, Saint Raphaël Tri did not turn up. According to the rules, this should have led to a penalty. Nevertheless, the club received all 11 points for the third place in La Baule.

Foreigners' Dominance

The high amount of international guest stars has always raised criticism in France. On the one hand, FFTRI is proud to gather some of the best elite stars of the world, on the other hand the rankings clearly show that the French triathletes are a small and irrelevant minority among the Grand Prix participants.
In the old Réglementation Sportive of the season 2007/08, the importance of the foreign guest stars was still restricted because among the three triathlètes classants l'équipe only one foreigner was allowed.

Season 2010

The rankings of the opening Grand Prix triathlon held at Dunkirk on 23 May 2010 give the following picture.
To some extent this season was irregular. On the one hand, traditional guest stars withdrew and concentrated on ITU races for the 2012 Olympics qualification. On the other hand, five clubs which had already been admitted to the Grand Prix, among which the female gold medalist and male silver medalist Beauvais, declared to withdraw in autumn 2010.
So in 2011 there were only 11 instead of 14 female teams.
The opening triathlon in Nice proved the undiminished foreigners' dominance in spite of the new regulation according to which each club has to be present with five triathletes at each competition with at least one French triathlete among them.