Americas Triathlon

ITU, the Mexican Triathlon Federation and Asdeporte (the Cancun World Cup Organising
Committee,) regret to inform you that the ITU Cancun World Cup will not take place
on Sunday, 30 October 2005 as scheduled.

The ongoing damage caused by Hurricane Wilma has affected the infrastructure of
the famous Caribbean resort and it will be impossible to stage the event as scheduled.

Repairs to the hotels, roads, electrical and water systems, airport, etc., will
take several weeks, and we all regret that the work will not be done in time to
guarantee the safety of the athletes, officials and all those who would be required
to stage the event.

There are many unknowns about the extent of the damage because all communication
to the resort is cut-off as the eye of the hurricane still lingers in the area.
The backend of the hurricane will pass over Cancun in the coming hours, with wind
and rain that is generally greater than the front end of the system.

It will be several hours yet before the authorities are able to assess the damage.

We have explored the possibility of staging the event on the following weekend
(6 October), but the damage to the resort of Cancun is so severe that repairs
will not be complete by that time.

Jaime Cadaval, ITU Technical Committee and International Liaison for the Mexican
Triathlon Federation will travel to Cancun as soon as possible to fully understand
the extent of the damage. Once we have Jaime’s report we will explore the possibility
of an alternate date to stage the event in 2005. A decision on an alternate date
will be made by ITU by Thursday, 27 October at the latest.

ITU is confident that all athletes and officials who have air travel booked to
Cancun for this event will be able to reuse their flights miles within the next
12 months as per The International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) rules to
which all airlines and travel agencies must adhere.

We will update you as soon as we have more information.