Tuesday, Sep. 08, 2009

Myrtle Beach set to welcome national triathlon; Confederate flag issue addressed

A national competition for an Olympic sport is scheduled to come to Myrtle Beach in 2010 for the first time, and local chamber of commerce officials are confident the Confederate battle flag on the Statehouse grounds will not squelch this deal as it recently did with an ACC tournament.

USA Triathlon, the national governing body for the event, selected Myrtle Beach as the site of the 2010 USA Triathlon National Championship Festival on Nov. 6, 2010.

Myrtle Beach also is scheduled to host the athletes in November 2011 and November 2012 as part of the qualifying process for the USAT Long Course Triathlon National Championship. These may be used as world championship qualifying events, depending on the world championship event dates, officials said Tuesday.

The events in 2010 are expected to draw a crowd of 2,000 to 3,000 athletes and several more thousand spectators, said officials from the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce.

Officials from the chamber said they discussed the controversy involving the Confederate battle flag with officials from USA Triathlon.

"We use our best judgment in trying to approach the situation, and often the best way is to be honest and straightforward," said Brad Dean, president of the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce. "We addressed it simply to affirm that it wouldn't be a problem. We're confident based on the answers that it's not an issue."

USA Triathlon representative Jeff Dyrek, whom chamber officials said they spoke with about the matter, could not be reached for comment.

In July, the Atlantic Coast Conference withdrew an annual baseball tournament after disapproval from the state conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

Horry County Council Chairwoman Liz Gilland said she was concerned about the impact of the ACC's decision to pull out of Myrtle Beach.

"It makes me nervous about the potential of the same thing happening with these events," she said. "I can only hope that those who have the decision-making abilities in Columbia will find a way to remove any impediments to South Carolina as a whole, but the Myrtle Beach area, particularly, and attract even bigger and better events in the future."

Removal of the flag from the Statehouse grounds would require a two-thirds vote in both the state Senate and House of Representatives.

Area officials have been promoting sports tourism as an option to boost revenue that was lost in Myrtle Beach by efforts to tune down the May motorcycle rallies.

This triathlon announcement came after months of working with numerous city, county and state officials to make sure Myrtle Beach could accommodate an event of this size.

Officials from the state Department of Transportation initially said they would not allow the closing of S.C. 31 as part of a 56-mile bike route, but changed its decision in mid-June after a meeting with county and chamber officials.

"Everybody finally came together, and we're able to do what we needed to do to convince USA Triathlon that we're a great location," said Roy Edmondson, sports sales manager for the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce. "For me, it was important to bring in an event of this caliber to show the rest of the sporting world that we can host these types of events, and we're ready for it, and we have what all these groups look for."

Gilland is hopeful the competitions will draw a crowd of new potential repeat tourists to the area and open the door to hosting pre-Olympic events.

"If you can get that foot in the door at all, you just have a wealth of opportunity to showcase that location, and in our case, it's just a tremendous amount to showcase," she said.

Tim Yount, a USA Triathlon spokesman, said the organization was drawn to the area because of its features and local support.

"The first thing was the attraction of being able to be off the water," Yount said. "The second was finding a community that can really step up and show support for all the needs that we have. There's a sense, a good sense, from a community perspective, that Myrtle Beach will support this from every which way."

Edmondson said this event is the "beginning of the tip of the iceberg" for large-scale sports tourism in the Myrtle Beach area.

"It's now [about] getting the rest of the country aware of what Myrtle Beach has to offer," he said.

The event in 2010 will consist of three separate races - the USA Triathlon Long Course Triathlon National Championship, USAT Club National Championship and Myrtle Beach Sprint Triathlons.

The long course triathlon requires all people to qualify before they compete. The club and sprint events are open to anyone.