More people competed in and watched the 2011 Dextro Energy Triathlon ITU World Championship Series (now rebranded as the ITU World Triathlon Series) worldwide than ever before, as the popularity of the world’s premier triathlon series continues to expand at a rapid rate.

In 2011 the series started in Sydney, then moved on to Madrid, Kitzbühel, Hamburg, London, Lausanne, the Beijing Grand Final, before gaining an early start for next year with 2012 points on offer in Yokohama. The series offered up plenty of amazing moments, from Javier Gomez‘s epic comeback in Sydney, Paula Findlay‘s three wins in a row to start the season, Alistair Brownlee and Jonathan Brownlee‘s first series podium 1-2 in Madrid (followed by their overall ITU World Championship one-two), Barbara Riveros Diaz’s first ITU World Championship in Lausanne, the golden weekend for Australia’s power couple Brad Kahlefeldt and Emma Moffatt in Hamburg, the maiden series title for Helen Jenkins in London. Then there was the incredible Grand Final performance from New Zealand’s Andrea Hewitt, who backed it up only 10 days later to win in Yokohama, and Portugal’s Joao Silva first series win to finish off 2012, also in Japan.

But looking past that thrilling racing, there are the statistics to show that the Dextro Energy Triathlon ITU World Championship Series took some significant steps forward behind the scenes as well. TV broadcast time increased from 556 hours in 2010 to 917 hours in 2011. The TV contacts per event rose from 2.26 to 4.59 billion. Amateur athletes competing at the Series events increased from 21,280 to 27,569, and all events together could generated almost 1.4 million spectator contacts, almost double the 2010 figure.

The series was entirely covered live by 17 broadcast partners. The live broadcast plus the ten 52 minute magazine shows were distributed to 42 TV partners who broadcasted into more than 160 countries and a news feed was also immediately distributed worldwide post race.

For 2010 a new website design was launched and this generated 3.8 million page impressions from January to November. In 2011 it was 5.3 million page impressions within the same time. Significantly, the www.triathlonlive.tv web page gathered an extra 700,000 page impressions in 2011, up from just over 300,000 to 1.05million.

The event in Hamburg was established 10-years ago and the interest of spectators and media is still growing. 1331 articles about the event were published with a circulation of 36.38 million, that was more than 254 articles more than in 2010 were the circulation was at 30 million. Out of the individual series race websites, Hamburg also received the most hits - with over 1 million page impressions.

What was also significant was growth in individual countries, in particular growing triathlon hotspots like Russia was up 103 per cent, Singapore up 33 per cent and Hong Kong up 20 hours. But there was also substantial growth in the total broadcast time in traditional triathlon nations, Australia was up 45 per cent, New Zealand 38 per cent, United Kingdom 52 per cent and the USA a huge 82 per cent. These TV figures include live coverage, including news and highlights.

The London event, which this year was the first and last time athletes could race the official Olympic course, attracted an extra 54 million viewers – up from 12 million to 64 million.

Overall, broadcasting time was up 53 per cent, the TV Audience increased by 98 million worldwide and there was 2.69 billion more FASPO contacts.