Surf Life Saving Australia have confirmed that Iron X is not the future of the Nutri-Grain series

After months of speculation and confusion, Surf Life Saving Australia have finally confirmed that Iron X is not the future of the professional series after privately allaying athletes’ fears earlier this week.

AFTER months of speculation and fear, Surf Life Saving Australia have finally confirmed that Iron X is not the future of the professional series after privately allaying athletes’ fears earlier this week.

The decision follows a wave of athletes taking to social media over the weekend demanding for SLSA to ‘come clean’ with their intentions in response to speculation that new disciplines stand up paddle boarding and beach obstacle courses would form part of future professional series.

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The pleas followed a viral online petition started by Alexandra Head’s ironman Campbell Guthrie which called for athletes and members of the surf lifesaving community to ‘Say No to IronX,” which has attracted more than 4000 signatures in three days.

In Tuesday’s Bulletin, Nutri-Grain series winner Matt Bevilacqua called for SLSA to rule out rumours that the new elements weren’t the future of the sport.

Kurrawa Ironman Matt Bevilacqua this week called on SLSA to come clean with their plans for thr future. Picture Glenn Hampson

“If SLSA can call this a stand-alone event everyone will be relatively happy but they won’t do it,” he said.

The controversial Iron X event will still be held at Mooloolaba on January 27 but it won’t be part of the elite Nutri-Grain series.

Surf Life Saving Australia General Manager Greg Meagher told the Bulletin that SLSA had no plans to modify future Nutri-Grain series.

“We have been in touch with the vast majority of athletes over the past 24 hours, primarily to allay some of their concerns,” he said.

“The ironman series in its traditional form is here to stay.

“We reinforced that there was no intention to replace traditional iron racing with something else.

“There will always be traditional iron racing in our summer calendar.”

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Many athletes feared that their governing body intended to integrate the new disciplines into the elite series as early as the 2020/21 series, including Noosa athlete Lana Rogers who was told that she’d be a ‘retired ironwoman’ if she didn’t support Iron X as the new-look format was the future of surf lifesaving.

Surf Life Saving stars, Hannah Sculley, Danielle McKenzie, Harriet Brown, Kirsty Higgison, Maddy Dunn, and Georgia Miller, last week spoke out about changes to the Nutri-Grain series. Picture: Jerad Williams

Meagher said that after SLSA’s plans to include the elements as part of the upcoming professional series received backlash, some confusion remained about whether they’d revisit the initial plan in the future.

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“We presented some concepts and ideas and that’s why we had the forum in the first place,” he said.

“We listened to the athlete’s feedback and took that on board and that’s when we took the position to reinstate that traditional iron racing would be in this coming season”

“I recognise that there may have been some confusion but that’s where we landed.”

Meagher said that SLSA would evaluate Iron X’s place in the summer surf calendar at the conclusion of the upcoming season.

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“It’s too early to predict where Iron X will go,” he said.

“We’d like to run it this season and see the athletes support it and then work through what it looks like for next summer.”