New course for Newport Beach Triathlon in April

The Newport Beach Triathlon will be back this spring with a new race route.

The annual event was canceled last year due to logistical problems and turmoil with city officials.

Race officials opened registration Monday, and the triathlon is set for April 22. City officials confirmed they seem to have worked out the issues they had with the event’s organizers, and the race will follow a new course everyone’s happy with.

“I can honestly say the triathlon community in Orange County came out of the woodwork saying, ‘We’d like to see this come back,’ and that was really the motivation for pursuing it,” said Jack Caress, president of Pacific Sports LLC, which organizes the race.

It will be the race’s 29th year. The race wasn’t held in 2006 after Newport Beach city staff and then the City Council rejected requests for the necessary permits.

At the time, city officials said race organizers had failed to properly control traffic and clean up at earlier events, among other complaints.

Caress disagreed with the city staff’s assessment and took the dispute to the City Council, but council members also refused the race permit.

One of the biggest issues last year, Caress said Tuesday, was the course. The same route was used in 2004 and 2005, but it required closing part of Jamboree Road — a major city thoroughfare — and it went through Newport Center, where street closures were an issue for hotels and restaurants.

So this time, Caress proposed a route and then listened to the city’s alternate proposal. Organizers went with the city’s plan: a bike course of two 7.5-mile loops along Back Bay and Eastbluff drives, a 3-mile running course through the Newport Dunes to Back Bay View Park and a half-mile swim at the Dunes.

“The key was having as minimal [an] impact as possible,” Caress said. “Of all the events we’ve ever put on, this is probably the least impact on city streets.”

Wes Morgan, the city’s director of recreation and senior services, said officials are still hammering out a few details about the race and will meet this week to walk the new route.

“Safety on the route is the biggest issue for the city,” he said. “We’re working out the issues and it’s a cooperative effort, and if we keep going like this, I think it should be fine.”

The triathlon drew about 900 participants in 2005, but Caress said for the first time on the new route, he’ll limit it to 800 people just to see how it works.

Some of the volunteers from earlier years have offered their services again, and athletes are excited about the event’s return, he said.

“I was getting probably five to 10 e-mails a day — and other people in our office were, too — about ‘Is it going to happen,’ and ‘When is it going to happen,’” Caress said.

He also credits Newport Beach Mayor Steve Rosansky with getting the event back into gear. After the council voted against the race permit in 2006, Rosansky offered to help work out the bugs for the next year, and he’s been involved in every step this time, Caress said.

“The events are what make the city what it is,” Rosansky said. “I think there was a lot of interest expressed in the race by participants. It seemed like if that many people are interested, it was worth trying to save it.”

For information on the Newport Beach Triathlon, visit www.pacificsportsllc.com.