From its high-speed Internet to the frenzied competition to win the online voting as Outside Magazine’s best outdoor city in America, Chattanooga doesn’t move slowly anymore. Now there’s yet another example of the Scenic City becoming the Speedy City.
Tuesday afternoon, the Ironman organization announced that Chattanooga is one of three finalists to host the 2017 Ironman 70.3 World Championships. Lake Placid, N.Y., and St. George, Utah, are the other finalists for the event when it returns to North America as part of the event’s rotation to different parts of the world.
Professional triathletes Leon Griffin #4, Andy Potts #1 and Bozzone Terenzo #2 crest the Veteran’s Bridge while running the first lap of the run course during the inaugural Sunbelt Bakery Ironman 70.3 Chattanooga race on Sunday, May 17, 2015. U.S. athlete Andy Potts won the race with a final time of 3:49:43. “Success breeds success,” said Tim Morgan, president of the Chattanooga Sports Committee. “The way the community embraced the full (Ironman) and the way the community embraced the (recent) 70.3 put us in a position to be a finalist for this international world championship.”
The 70.3 world finals would be added that year to the 140.6-mile Ironman in late September and the existing 70.3-miler in May. It probably would be held in August or early September.
In less than a year, Chattanooga has gone from a city that had no experience putting together an Ironman triathlon to potentially the host site of one of the sport’s most high-profile events globally. Chattanooga hosted its first Ironman event with last fall’s full Little Debbie Ironman Chattanooga and followed that up with the Sunbelt Bakery Ironman Chattanooga 70.3 earlier this month.