Over 400 triath­letes will par­tic­i­pate in Sat­ur­day’s Rain­bow Cup at Tur­tle Beach in To­ba­go.

The event is ex­pect­ed to be the last Rain­bow Cup event on the sis­ter isle, as fi­nan­cial con­straints have be­come too much of a bur­den, or­gan­is­er Ja­son Good­ing has said. The Rain­bow Cup com­pris­es the fea­ture sprint event, the Stan­dard Dis­tance race, which is twice the dis­tance of the over­all triathlon event, and the Youth Dis­tance Triathlon for ju­nior ath­letes in the age brack­ets 10-12, and 13-15 that will be used as qual­i­fiers for the Carif­ta Games, as well as the 3-5 age brack­et and the 6-9 years.

There is al­so the Try-A-Try triathlon for any­one in­ter­est­ed in try­ing a triathlon race, and a 5 5-kilo­me­tre run.

In its many years of ex­is­tence in the sis­ter isle, the Rain­bow Cup has been a main source of growth and de­vel­op­ment, and a form of liveli­hood for many. Good­ing said, apart from the ac­tu­al event, they al­so had to pay for the use of life­guards and oth­er work­ers for the smooth run­ning of the event.

Last year, Liam D’Abadie clinched the win in the fea­ture sprint cat­e­go­ry, how­ev­er, that event has faced a dras­tic de­cline in num­bers to 12 par­tic­i­pants this year, from what it was in the past. The stan­dard dis­tance race, though longer in dis­tance, has al­ready racked up 85 com­peti­tors with the reg­is­tra­tion date set to close in a few days.

Good­ing, a for­mer na­tion­al triath­lete, has tak­en over the ad­min­is­tra­tion of the sport from his fa­ther Ian Good­ing, who has worked for many years be­fore his pass­ing. How­ev­er, in his at­tempt to fol­low in the foot­steps of his dad, Good­ing (Ja­son) faces a ma­jor chal­lenge with fund­ing.

He said if cor­po­rate T&T does not come on board quick­ly, the Rain­bow Cup event, as we know it on the sis­ter isle, will be a thing of the past. He told Guardian Me­dia Sports he has had to dig in­to his pock­ets con­sis­tent­ly to en­sure it is cov­ered an­nu­al­ly.

This year, the event is ex­pect­ed to be sim­i­lar to pre­vi­ous years. Good­ing told Guardian Me­dia Sports that there is no need to make any change or ad­just­ment in the events, as they have found a sys­tem that has been work­ing per­fect­ly.

Ac­cord­ing to Good­ing, the event has seen in­creas­ing num­bers year­ly among the var­i­ous cat­e­gories, par­tic­u­lar­ly the kids’ cat­e­go­ry. Come Sat­ur­day, the race will be­gin at 7 am on the dot. It will take place on closed roads be­tween Pleas­ant Prospect, the Starfish Ho­tel and Low­er Grafton Road.