Exclusive | New York Citys troubled triathlon returns Saturday with a new date, organizer and name is this time the charm?

It’s about tide! After two years of dormancy, the city’s only swim-bike-run event — now called the Big Apple Triathlon — will make a comeback Saturday with some 1,300 endurance enthusiasts expected to jump in (to the Hudson, that is). If all goes to plan, athletes taking on the longest distance will stroke nearly a mile up the shoreline before riding 25 miles along the West Side Highway and striding 6.2 miles into and around Central Park. The race, formerly known as the New York City Triathlon, has been around since 2001.But its recent history is notoriously choppy, soured by scheduling snafus and weather woes. “I believe every edition since 2017, we either had to shorten the run, shorten the bike or cancel the swim,” former race director Alex De Gracia of Life Time told the Post.

(His organization sold the race in 2023.)In 2019, for example, the then-summer spectacle was nixed due to extreme heat.In 2021 and 2023, water quality concerns shuttered the swim and rerouted athletes to a run-bike-run.

In 2022, a forecast in the 90s slashed the bike and run distances by at least half.And, before 2024’s race even opened to registrants, organizers threw in the towel.While they’d tried to skirt scorching temps by moving the production to the fall, they and the city couldn’t land on a viable date.

Local triathletes moved on. But now, under the direction of yet another organizer, Alpha Win, and with an early fall date, the starting gun will sound again.And competitors — about half of whom are coming from outside the city and most of whom paid between $350 and $625 for the honor — hope this time’s the charm. “I was super excited when I heard about it; I loved the New York City Triathlon,” said Matt Stern, a 32-year-old attorney in Manhattan who raced in 2023 and calls the course “epic.” “I think it’s amazing to be able to swim, bike and run in the city.

You train here every day, so to actually be able to race here is awesome.” A ...