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Happy August running, readers!
The Olympic sprinter Allyson Felix has a new sponsor, and it’s a newcomer to the pro running world. On Wednesday, Athleta, a women’s sports apparel company owned by Gap, announced that it would sponsor Felix, who has won nine Olympic track and field medals, six of them gold.
Felix, who had a daughter last November, publicly discussed her dispute over maternity coverage with her previous sponsor, Nike, in a New York Times video and op-ed in May. She said Nike wanted to pay her 70 percent less after she gave birth to her daughter via emergency C-section.
“We may stand behind the brands we endorse, but we also need to hold them accountable when they are marketing us to appeal to the next generation of athletes and consumers,” she wrote.
Felix came forward after Alysia Montaño spoke up about similar issues she faced. In late May, Nike said it would end financial penalties for pregnant athletes.
Felix ran in the U.S.A. Track and Field outdoor championships last weekend without a sponsor, just before the Athleta announcement.
“Allyson is giving women and girls the confidence to raise their voices; demonstrating the power in the collective. We are thrilled to welcome her to our family. She is an inspiration to all of us,” Athleta’s chief marketing officer, Sheila Shekar Pollak, said in a statement.
In other news, triathlons appear to be facing the same kind of participation slump that hit running in the mid-2010s: U.S.A. Triathlon’s membership dropped about a quarter over a five-year period. And that’s not all — on July 26, Wanda Sports Group, which owns, among its many holdings, Ironman and the Rock ‘n’ Roll race series, went public for $190.4 million — a disappointment considering that in June it said it hoped to raise $505 million.
It’s easy to point at triathlons as being too expensive (especially considering costs for a bike and access to a pool) as the sole issue for declining numbers, but, as I found when I wrote about the same issue in the running industry, there’s more competition for your endurance dollar now too, like from mud and obstacle runs, or untimed “fun runs” that focus less on competition and more on experience.