Triathlon: Planners given the keys to the city

The bike and run legs will go straight up Queen St. Photo / Glenn Jeffrey

Organisers of this year's Auckland leg of the Triathlon World Cup have set an ambitious course through the central city that will challenge athletes and local agencies.

Auckland will host the final round of the ITU World Cup on November 20. The event will serve as a test run before the city hosts the biggest event on the triathlon calendar, the world championships grand final in October next year.

The chief executive of the organisational body for the two events, Dave Beeche, said organisers took a "no compromises" approach when it came to setting the course, as they wanted to create the best possible event for athletes and spectators.

"It is not a stadium-based event - Auckland is our stadium and we want to feature everything that is cool about Auckland," said Mr Beeche.

The course will start and finish at Queen's Wharf, and the bike and run legs will go straight up Queen St, which will mean shutting down much of the central city.

Mr Beeche said he was grateful for the way local government agencies had got on board.

"The course we've come up with is logistically really challenging, but it has been incredible how all the agencies seem to be working together and the answer to everything is 'Yes, let's work out how' rather than 'We can't do that'," he said.

The central city bus network will be one of the services most affected by the event, but Mr Beeche said Auckland Transport had been accommodating.

"We presented our proposed course to Auckland Transport and they came back to us three weeks later with a 40-page plan of how they were going to reroute their entire bus network through the central city for us."

The Auckland Council subsidiary Auckland Tourism Events and Economic Development has contributed $1.1 million to the two events, which Auckland Mayor Len Brown believes lines up with the city's major events strategy.

Mr Brown hopes hosting the triathlon events will help attract other high-profile sporting events to the city.

"As well as direct economic benefit, we will be profiling Auckland to the world and hosting a significant number of international visitors, while also giving our residents the chance to enjoy two free, world class festivals," he said.