Event swag is a vital element to any race. How else does an athlete casually mention they lined up with Olympians at the start of the 2024 Ski to Sea Race while sipping on an IPA at their favorite local brewery?
Yet, a Cascadia Daily News analysis of registration data revealed that nearly 8% of participants this year forewent a free event T-shirt and beanie this year, electing instead to make a donation to Bellingham Youth Paddle Sports.
Nonetheless, 13% of athletes went with the beanie option, putting the classic event T-shirt ahead of the pack with 65% of participants wanting those threads. (About 14% of people had yet to complete their registration form by May 8, providing no insights into their swag preferences.)
Expect to see a lot of that swag staying in town after the race with about 21% of the participants calling Bellingham home. A strong contingent of racers (19%) are coming up from Seattle for the event. A little more than 4% are coming from out of country — the majority of those being Canadians.
The field is stacked with participants in their late 20s and early 30s with the largest age group being 30-year-olds. Despite the strong showing from 27, 28, 29 and 30-year-olds, the average age for particpants is 34.7 years.
Non-binary folks make up nearly 1% of participants, and 32% of racers identify as female and 55% male. About 550 people had yet to fill in their demographic information.
Back to the swag, and undaunted by the sheer volume of T-shirt requests — nearly 2,700 — CDN drilled deeper into the numbers.
We all know that Olympic gold medalists come in all shapes and sizes, from American gymnast Simone Biles standing at 4-foot-8 to American swimmer Matthew Grevers at 6-foot-8. The same goes for Ski to Sea participants.
Overall, the shirt sizes trended down, away from XXL (37 participants) and XL (313 participants) toward medium and large when compared to the average distribution of sizes suggested by online vendors. (For the sake of this vital analysis, CDN did not differentiate between unisex and women's shirts.)
While XS and small shirts did fall roughly in line with the national distribution, there were notably higher percentages of medium and large shirts being requested. Nearly 12% of participants did ask for an XL shirt, but that is almost half the percent suggested by online retailers.
No data was provided on beanie sizes, but CDN suspects they’ll be a bit tighter on first-place finishers of this spectacular and grueling event.
Isaac Stone Simonelli is CDN’s enterprise/investigations reporter; reach him at isaacsimonelli@cascadiadaily.com; 360-922-3090 ext. 127.
