Supertri has a simple ambition. Create a professional product that inspires people to swim, bike, and run, then turn that inspiration into participation.
The person behind that idea is Michael D’hulst, a Belgian endurance lifer who took a detour through the boardrooms of Volkswagen in China before returning to triathlon with a founder’s energy and a builder’s patience.
His path includes helping launch Challenge Taiwan, working with Bahrain Endurance, co-founding Super League Triathlon, piloting Arena Games during the pandemic, and now rebranding as Supertri with a clear focus on short course racing for the masses and the pros.
How It Started: D’hulst’s First Moves in Triathlon
“I am originally from Belgium,” D’hulst says. “Belgium has an affinity for endurance sports because of cycling.” He ran well at school, discovered early versions of high school triathlon, and watched Luc Van Lierde win Kona in 1996. Triathlon hooked him.
Corporate life took him to China for a decade. When it was time for a break, a sabbatical planted the seed to train for Kona, and to make his first big move into the triathlon industry. At Challenge Wanaka, he met Challenge Roth owner Felix Walchshofer. “Give me the opportunity to build Challenge Family in Asia,” D’hulst proposed. He went on to launch Challenge Taiwan, helped with races in the Philippines, and brought Chris McCormack to Asia to build profile.
The next chapter was Bahrain Endurance, which he credits with creating real community impact across the Gulf. “Sport connected people and opened doors,” he says, recalling Bahraini women racing abroad and shifting perceptions back home.
What D’hulst really wanted, though, was to build something from the ground up. Enter tech entrepreneur (and fellow passionate triathlete!) Leonid Boguslavsky and a pitch to create a short, sharp, professional, complementary product for the modern media landscape. “Do an MVP,” Boguslavsky told him, referring to a “minimal viable product” in startup terms. They did. In 2017, Hamilton Island, Australia, became the launch of Super League Triathlon, a broadcast friendly format designed to be fast, technical, and unforgiving.
The Launch of Super League and a Builder’s Mindset
Super League launched with a bold ambition: to reimagine professional triathlon through fast-paced, technical, and spectator-friendly racing. From day one, D’hulst approached the league not as a finished product, but as a work in progress – one that would evolve through iteration.
“We initially did multiple days of racing, then streamlined that to one day,” he says. “We looked at the different formats we had and started optimizing them.”
That iterative mindset let the team to shift its base from Asia to Europe, where short course racing had deeper roots and greater momentum. Events in Malta, Mallorca, Jersey, France, Germany, and the UK gave Super League a foothold and a loyal audience. Then COVID hit.
“It’s kind of part of our DNA that we innovate,” D’hulst says. The pandemic put that ethos to the test. Rather than hibernate, they created Arena Games with socially distanced racing and a Zwift partnership. Pools, lanes, bike trainers, and a closed bubble kept athletes moving and fans watching.
Post-pandemic, D’hulst doubled down on format and narrative. He pushed for the creation of team structures, not just to shake up competition, but to deepen fan engagement.
“Any sport needs a ‘layered cake’ of stories,” he says. “For triathlon to be popular, it needs to be more accessible. And any big sport is a team sport.” Teams, he explains, provide multiple points of connection beyond individual athletes, offering more for fans to follow and rally behind.
His “layered cake” approach also includes team managers, who bring their own personalities and story arcs into the fold. The result is a more dynamic, character-driven spectator experience.
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Podium Racing, managed by John Anthony, currently leads the standings, followed by Crown Racing under Chris McCormack, Brownlee Racing with Tim Don, and Stars and Stripes Racing led by Parker Spencer.
While Super League remained focused primarily on the pros, D’hulst also began laying the groundwork for broader amateur involvement – an ambition that would accelerate significantly in the Supertri era.
From Super League to Supertri – A New Chapter
In 2024, Super League evolved into Supertri. For D’hulst, the shift was not just a name change – it reflected a bigger vision. The concept had outgrown being simply a professional league; it had become about building an entire ecosystem.
“We needed to move from being a primarily professional league to becoming a community where the pros drive reach and brand equity,” he explains. He adds that the other half of the equation is expanding participation and involvement in the sport itself, with Supertri’s short-course series acting as a fresh and compelling entry point.
North America is the test bed for this expanded vision. Cities like Chicago, Toronto, Long Beach, and Austin are now part of the calendar, with more to come. “We put on a professional event, and does that drive participation?” D’hulst asks. The answer, based on Chicago’s results, is a clear yes: record fields and a steady 10 percent year-over-year growth at a mature event suggest that the model can scale.
There is also a strong values-based case for prioritizing short course racing. Barriers to entry are lower, training fits better into busy lives, and more frequent races help build habits and community. D’hulst is passionate about increasing race frequency: “A triathlete does an average of 1.5 races a year – seriously, you should be doing more than that!” he says with a smile.
To bring the vision to life, Supertri is piloting a range of programs designed to welcome new athletes and deepen engagement with age groupers. The model is simple: stage high-quality premium short-course events in marquee cities, spark thousands of first experiences, and let the energy ripple outward. “High-profile events in big cities help raise the profile of the sport,” D’hulst says. While major metros are expensive, he believes the aspiration they create is worth the spend – people want to race on the streets they see on TV.
In Long Beach, the debut of a free First-Timers Program featured an entire wave dedicated to newcomers, paired with a Corporate Challenge relay aimed at encouraging social and fundraising participation. The event was staged on the course originally planned to host the 2028 Olympic triathlon, exactly the kind of high-profile and iconic venue D’hulst believes the sport needs.
Chicago built on the momentum by expanding the First-Timers Program to include a free training plan, educational video sessions, coaching, and dedicated race-day support such as private swim starts and exclusive transition areas. These innovations remove barriers and create a welcoming environment for athletes at all levels.
Age groupers also want a taste of the pro experience. While the format will not be copy pasted, the appetite is real and some of the building blocks already exist. “In Chicago, we sold out at 250 people who raced three triathlons over the weekend,” D’hulst says. “They did the super sprint on Saturday and then raced the Olympic and the Sprint back-to-back on Sunday.” He intends to evolve that concept toward three back-to-back short races at select venues going forward, emulating the pros’ Enduro format.
“Making Short Course Cool Again”: Supertri’s Path Forward
If all of this sounds like a founder with a plan, that’s because it is.
The most recent Chicago weekend offered a small preview of what Supertri wants to scale. A pro show that is short and sharp. A participation festival across super sprint, sprint, and Olympic distances. A triple challenge for the diehards. A first-timer pathway that is free and welcoming. And a simple promise threaded through it all: Pros inspire. People participate. The sport grows.
For D’hulst, Supertri isn’t just a standalone product; it’s a key piece of a much larger triathlon ecosystem. His goal is not to compete with the sport’s existing structures, but to complement and strengthen them, helping triathlon’s popularity, accessibility, and cultural relevance rise together.
There’s an origin story here too: a throughline from a teenage runner in Belgium to a corporate expat to a race organizer in Taiwan to a league founder who refused to sit still during a global shutdown. It is not a straight line. It is a builder’s line. Try, test, and iterate.
“It is short, it is sharp, it is good for media, and it is always innovative,” D’hulst says of Supertri’s core DNA. The next phase is to make that innovation contagious. If Supertri can keep lighting up big city weekends and keep the door wide open for first-timers and friends, short course might not just be cool again. It might become the new entry point for the next generation of triathletes.
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