This year’s Rain­bow Cup To­ba­go In­ter­na­tion­al Triathlon Event, sched­uled to take place on June 7, will be the last time it will be held on the sis­ter is­land of To­ba­go.

Or­gan­is­er Ja­son Good­ing said it is just too cost­ly to host the event with­out a spon­sor.

Each year, the event costs Good­ing and Com­pa­ny up­wards of $200 000 to stage, with Good­ing hav­ing to dip in­to his pock­et con­stant­ly every year to en­sure it ma­te­ri­alis­es. “All I can say is that this event on the sis­ter isle of To­ba­go will not be held again,” Good­ing ex­plained, not­ing that he will now fo­cus on the Rain­bow Cup Grena­da, which was held in April of this year.

This year will be the 20th edi­tion of the Rain­bow Cup To­ba­go In­ter­na­tion­al Triathlon, which has grown ex­po­nen­tial­ly from 35-plus par­tic­i­pants the first year it was held at the Grafton Beach Re­sort to well over 300 par­tic­i­pants now at the Cour­land Bay Her­itage Park—af­fec­tion­ate­ly known as Tur­tle Beach.

Good­ing said that while growth is good for the sport, he can no longer main­tain the fi­nan­cial de­mand that comes with it.

“It’s been in­cred­i­bly dif­fi­cult to se­cure the spon­sor­ship need­ed to sus­tain an event of this cal­i­bre,” said Good­ing, a nine-time na­tion­al triathlon cham­pi­on who has called an end to his ca­reer to fo­cus on the man­age­ment of the sport.

“I was ready to end it af­ter 2024, but the com­mit­tee con­vinced me to try one more time. Sad­ly, the sup­port hasn’t ma­te­ri­alised—and I sim­ply can’t con­tin­ue cov­er­ing the costs alone.”

To­day, the Rain­bow Cup at­tracts over 300 triath­letes and hun­dreds more for its thrilling 5K run. It proud­ly serves as both the Na­tion­al Stan­dard Dis­tance Triathlon Cham­pi­onship and the Carif­ta team qual­i­fi­er and is the on­ly com­plet­ed ve­hi­cle-free race in T&T, which Good­ing said is a tes­ta­ment to its com­mit­ment to safe­ty and or­gan­i­sa­tion.

Last year, Blaine Williams sealed the win in the men’s di­vi­sion, turn­ing back Joshua Bridge­mo­han, while Zara Nicholls se­cured the women’s ti­tle. Nicholls got the bet­ter of Is­abelle D’Abadie for the gold medal and re­sult­ing ti­tle.

Grate­ful for the sup­port over the years, Good­ing re­flects on the event’s im­pact, which he said in­cludes de­vel­op­ing youth par­tic­i­pa­tion, host­ing school-based triathlons, duathlons, and aquathlon se­ries, and pro­duc­ing over 60 Carif­ta-ready ath­letes, many of whom com­pete in­ter­na­tion­al­ly.

Good­ing said they have al­so had to stop the in­vi­ta­tion of in­ter­na­tion­al ath­letes for the event.

Look­ing ahead, un­less there’s a ma­jor turn­around in sup­port, Good­ing plans to shift his fo­cus to the Rain­bow Cup Grena­da In­ter­na­tion­al Triathlon, which de­buted in 2024 and con­tin­ued in­to 2025.

“With stronger back­ing from the Gov­ern­ment of Grena­da and a con­ve­nient 35-minute flight from To­ba­go, I hope ath­letes will con­tin­ue their jour­ney there. It’s bit­ter­sweet. This event was born out of a dream shared with my late fa­ther, Ian ‘Bi­gO’ Good­ing. Clos­ing this chap­ter af­ter 20 years will be emo­tion­al—but it’s time,” Good­ing con­clud­ed.