If there is one name that is synonymous with triathlon it’s Barry Siff. An avid triathlete since 1986, Team Timex athlete, current USA Triathlon President and member of the Executive Board for both the International Triathlon Union and the American Triathlon Confederation, Barry is living a life dedicated to the sport of triathlon. His experience as an athlete and race director, well known for the iconic Boulder Peak Triathlon, allows him to bring a multi-faceted perspective to the organizations he is serving. In today’s conversation you will get a sneak peak into the up and coming triathlon stars (can you say Gwen Jorgensen’s of the future) and why it’s so important to support our multi-sport youth athletes. Barry explains how the money from our USAT memberships are allocated. A fee that many of us begrudgingly pay once a year and often seen as an obstacle to completing our USAT sanctioned race registrations. Barry says he gets a lot of crap on social media about where the membership dues go and he clears that up today. Frankly, USAT is an organization that just wants to grow the sport and continue to keep our country in the forefront of high performance. This year alone our country won both the men and women divisions at the Juniors Grand Final in Cozumel. This is the first time in 20 years that this has been done by one country. The US is strong right now and our programs are top notch. We brought home gold on the women’s side this year in Rio after not medaling since 2004 when Susan Williams brought home a bronze medal. Barry shares his motivation for getting involved with USAT, a move that he never thought would end up where he is today in the organization. But if you know Barry then you know that he can’t do anything half heartedly. When he and wife Jodee were running 5430 Sports in Boulder, Colorado they were on 24/7 for years. Barry shares his wisdom on what it takes to be a great race director which, in his case, led to a very successful race company which he sold to Ironman in 2009. It was great to reconnect with Barry after several years. He and Jodee have since moved away from Boulder to Tuscon where we caught up with him at their beautiful home. We do a good bit of reminiscing about the good ole’days in Boulder and definitely get into some name dropping but the truth is, you can’t live in Boulder and not have run ins with the who’s who of triathlon especially when you are Barry Siff. It was a joy to chat with such an esteemed member of the multi-sport community and know that with people like Barry at the helm, our sport is in caring hands.

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“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.

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