Around 2,500 people plan to spend their Sunday in Salem racing through 70.3 miles of land and water, starting and ending at Riverfront Park.
The Ironman 70.3 will return for the third year in a row to Salem, the only city in Oregon that has hosted the triathlon. The race has been a boon to the local economy, last year bringing in around 7,000 spectators and over $10 million in revenue, according to Travel Salem, the city’s tourism agency.
Competitors will start walking around 6 a.m. from Riverfront Park to Minto-Brown Island Park and then hop in the water. They will swim 1.2 miles in the Willamette River, cycle 56 miles through south Salem to the Ankeny National Wildlife Refuge and back, then run 13.1 miles through Minto Brown Park.
They will hit the finish line at the Gerry Frank | Salem Rotary Amphitheater in Riverfront Park, according to a city of Salem news release.
Drivers should expect delays downtown on Sunday.
The Peter Courtney Minto Island bicycle and pedestrian bridge will be closed to the public during the race on Sunday between 8 a.m. and 4:30 p.m.
Several roads will be closed from Riverfront Park toward the wildlife refuge in Jefferson, and there will be limited access and restricted parking at the park, a city news release said. A list of road closures is available online, and people with questions can call the city’s dispatch center at 503-588-6311.
Ironman has been sold out every year it has come to Salem, bringing most hotels in the area at or near capacity the weekend of the race, according to Kara Kuh, deputy marketing officer for Travel Salem.
The agency won’t have an estimate of hotel rooms booked for the event until after. But when the Holman Riverfront Park Hotel opened downtown earlier this year, general manager Matt Smith told Salem Reporter that people had been asking about Ironman weekend because other local hotels were already full.
Organizers first brought the race to Salem in 2021 under a three-year agreement, with this year’s event being the last one under the deal. Previous races have drawn competitors from around the world.
Race Director Joel Gaff Jr. said Thursday that organizers are still “hashing out the details” or a future agreement, but they hope to return next year and continue doing so.
“We’re definitely hoping to be here for a long time,” he said. “The response we’ve gotten is that the community in general likes us here and would love to have us stay. So we’re hoping to make that happen and we really think we will.”
There were a handful of reasons, according to Gaff, that Salem was selected as Oregon’s Ironman base.
It had swimming water, the capacity to bring over 2,000 people into town for a weekend and a striking landscape.
“From the Willamette River that the athletes swim in, all the way to the pastoral farmland that our cyclists are going to ride down toward the Ankeny Wildlife Refuge, to running on Minto-Brown Island Park. It’s just beautiful,” he said.
The Salem triathlon was selected among 118 events worldwide as the Best Overall Run Experience for the 2022 Ironman 70.3 Athletes’ Choice Awards, according to a press release from Travel Salem.
Participating athletes spend anywhere from six months to a year training, swimming, biking and running every day to prepare for the race.
“It is a commitment,” Gaff said. “Some people liken it to taking on a part-time job to train for an event like this with all the additional training you have to do.”
Athletes of all ages and ability levels have competed in the Salem Ironman.
“The vast majority, 99.9% of the folks that are going to be here on Sunday are everyday folks,” he said. “A lot of them are just trying to fulfill a bucket list or really do something that challenges them, and this is what they’ve chosen to do.”
Contact reporter Ardeshir Tabrizian: [email protected] or 503-929-3053.
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Ardeshir Tabrizian has covered criminal justice and housing for Salem Reporter since September 2021. As an Oregon native, his award-winning watchdog journalism has traversed the state. He has done reporting for The Oregonian, Eugene Weekly and Malheur Enterprise.
