About Triathlon Magazine Canada

Triathlon Magazine Canada

Overview

Triathlon Magazine Canada is the Canadian magazine of swim-bike-run, covering triathlon from first-time "try-a-tri" entrants through Olympic-distance racing to Ironman competition. Published in Toronto by Gripped Publishing Inc., it pairs print issues — three a year, including an annual Buyer's Guide and a world-championship special built around the Ironman title races in Nice and Kona — with a website, triathlonmagazine.ca, that publishes new material every day. The magazine is a consumer title sold by subscription and on newsstands, and it is the elder sibling in Gripped Publishing's endurance-sports portfolio alongside Canadian Running, Canadian Cycling Magazine and the climbing magazine Gripped.

Its remit, as the library subscription service EBSCO describes it, is the whole of Canadian multi-sport: race and event reports, profiles of top athletes, insight into the scene from local clubs to elites, reviews of bikes, technology, wetsuits and running shoes, and coaching advice on training and fitness across all three disciplines. The ISSN recorded for the title is 1718-2441.

History

Gripped Publishing launched Triathlon Magazine Canada in 2006, six years after Sam Cohen and David Chaundy-Smart founded the company with the climbing magazine Gripped. An Ontario Creates profile of the company records that the triathlon title was the venture's turning point: triathlon advertisers were willing to spend to reach a wealthier participant base, and the magazine's success put the young publishing house on a viable footing from which Canadian Cycling Magazine and Canadian Running later followed.

The magazine's founding editor was Kevin Mackinnon, whose background was in the sport itself: a professional triathlete for nine years before retiring in 1993, he went on to coach for more than thirty years, worked as communications director for Ironman Canada and Ironman North America, served as managing editor of Ironman.com and editor in chief at Ironman, and became one of Canada's best-known race announcers. In his own account of leaving the magazine, published when he joined the American triathlon site Slowtwitch as a senior editor, Mackinnon wrote that he had been the founding editor of Triathlon Magazine Canada and had put his last issue to bed after just shy of twenty years in the job.

Gripped Publishing advertised the full-time editorship in June 2025, describing a role responsible for three print issues a year and for daily editorial content on the website. Brit Cooper, a triathlete of more than fifteen years' experience across sprint and Ironman racing, introduced herself as the magazine's new editor in July 2025; her first issues included the November 2025 Nice + Kona Special, and she edited the Buyer's Guide 2026 annual. The masthead of that issue lists Sam Cohen as publisher, David Smart (Chaundy-Smart) as editorial director, Cooper as editor and Andre Cheuk as associate editor.

Content and Coverage

The magazine's coverage follows the sport's calendar and its people. Race reporting spans the Ironman World Championship in Kona and its companion race in Nice, the T100 series, supertri and the Olympic Games — the site carried daily coverage of the Paris 2024 triathlon events — as well as the Canadian race scene. The November 2025 Nice + Kona Special, the current issue promoted on the website as this profile was prepared, led with Norwegians Casper Stornes and Solveig Lovseth at the top of the sport, an exclusive interview with Daniela Ryf on her next chapter, and a championship-mindset feature drawing on Tim O'Donnell and Lisa Bentley.

Gear and training are the magazine's service core. The annual Buyer's Guide curates standout swim, bike and run equipment for training and race day; regular expert contributors include run coach Rob Watson and exercise physiologist Dr. Dan Plews, who writes on nutrition and training, while the 2026 guide carried contributions from six-time world champion Mark Allen and two-time world champion and coach Siri Lindley. The website's daily output mixes news and features — in October 2026 it covered Pinarello's new Bolide F TR triathlon bike, released in Kona, alongside training and lifestyle features. Profiles, travel and event reports and club-level coverage round out a mix aimed squarely at participants rather than spectators.

Audience and Reach

Triathlon Magazine Canada addresses Canada's triathlon community across the sport's full range, from beginners preparing for a first sprint race to age-group athletes racing Ironman events and the professionals and coaches who work with them. It is a paid consumer title: the magazine's masthead lists a subscription price of $22.95 for one year and $39.95 for two years in Canada, and copies are sold on newsstands, with digital editions distributed through Zinio and through EBSCO's Flipster service for libraries, schools and businesses.

The publisher does not make a current audited circulation figure for the title public, and none is asserted here. The measurable signs of its reach are its longevity — two decades in print under one publisher — the depth of its website archive, and its position as the triathlon title in a four-magazine endurance-sports group whose titles share staff, contributors and advertisers across the Canadian running, cycling, climbing and triathlon communities.

Digital Presence

Triathlonmagazine.ca is updated daily with news, training advice, gear coverage, race reports and athlete profiles, and it serves as the subscription and submissions point for the print magazine; contributor guidelines are posted on the site. Its archive runs to hundreds of author pages for long-serving contributors such as Mackinnon, evidence of how much of the title's journalism now lives online between its three annual print issues. The title has long shared its small Toronto production team with the group's other magazines: when Gripped Publishing's advertising sales director and senior photo editor Chris Lepik died in 2016, the company's obituary on the Triathlon site recorded fourteen years of his work across Triathlon Magazine Canada, Canadian Running and Canadian Cycling Magazine, a reminder that the four titles are produced by one interlocking staff. Digital editions of each print issue are sold through Zinio, and the title is available to institutional readers through Flipster. The brand's social channels are run from the Gripped Publishing office — the Buyer's Guide 2026 masthead credits a social media lead within the Toronto team — and the website cross-promotes the group's sister titles, Canadian Running, Canadian Cycling Magazine and Gripped, whose podcasts and sites share the same endurance-sports audience.

Ownership and Organisation

Triathlon Magazine Canada is published by Gripped Publishing Inc., the independent Toronto magazine company founded in 1999 by Sam Cohen and David Chaundy-Smart. Cohen is the magazine's publisher and Chaundy-Smart the group's editorial director; the editor is Brit Cooper, with Andre Cheuk as associate editor, Matt Stetson as photo editor and Warren Wheeler as art director, per the Buyer's Guide 2026 masthead. The magazine shares its parent company's Toronto production, advertising, circulation and digital staff with Gripped, Canadian Cycling Magazine and Canadian Running. Editorial leadership changed hands in 2025 for the first time in the title's history, when founding editor Kevin Mackinnon departed for Slowtwitch and Cooper took over with the July 2025 issues.

Contact and Availability

Triathlon Magazine Canada is published three times a year in print, including the annual Buyer's Guide and the Nice + Kona world-championship special, and is available by subscription, on newsstands and as a digital edition through Zinio and Flipster. Subscriptions are handled through triathlonmagazine.ca and by telephone at 1 (800) 567-0444; the magazine's subscription mailing address is P.O. Box 819, Station Main, Markham, Ontario L3P 8L3, while the publishing operation, Gripped Publishing, is based in Toronto. Daily news, training and gear coverage, contributor guidelines and contact details are at triathlonmagazine.ca.