Sutton resigns as TeamTBB coach

Brett Sutton, who has coached triathletes to more world championships and major victories than any other, announced today his resignation as head coach of Team TBB effective January 1, 2014.

In a media release, Sutton said he was prompted to resign because he no longer wanted his ongoing criticism of the World Triathlon Corporation and the actions of a few Team TBB sponsors to cause his athletes to suffer discrimination and economic hardship.

“It seems that my constant harping of WTC is causing discrimination towards the athletes and causing disharmony within the group,” Sutton wrote.

Sutton said that “the sport requires drastic change” and he would resign and move out of Ironman coaching “to give myself the opportunity to talk the truth without harming any part of Team TBB coaching or the team’s staff.”

During Sutton’s slightly under 7-year reign with Team TBB and its forebear, The Bike Boutique, his athletes won multiple world titles including the Ironman World Championship and the ITU Long Distance World Championship. During his career Sutton has been praised by many of his champion athletes including Chrissie Wellington and Caroline Steffen and has also incurred sharp criticism from others who claim he overworked and over-raced his athletes, risking injury with a survival-of-the-fittest strategy.

Sutton has been increasingly critical of the WTC, claiming in his widely read, typo-heavy tweets that the Ironman organization has been more motivated by profit than the good of the sport and has been short-changing professional triathletes.

Sutton recently devised a plan to form a new triathlon organization aimed at attracting up to 10,000 individuals who would pay a $100 fee to join and thus fund major races which would cut entry fees to a third of standard Ironman charge and which would also offer a substantial professional prize purse. He wished to introduce this project in the week before the Ironman World Championship but met with strong resistance to the timing from many of his most prominent athletes.

Recently, Caroline Steffen announced that she would be leaving the TeamTBB unified sponsorship agreement, but refused to say whether she would continue to be coached by Sutton.