Athlinks is both the largest and most complete results database for endurance races on the planet, and a fully-featured social network built specifically for the endurance athlete community.

We add well over one million results to the database each month from several thousand endurance races including running (road races, track and field, cross country), triathlon (any multi-sport), swimming, cycling (TTs and crits), mountain biking and more.

Athlinks is not just another place to park your blog. The community features are deeply integrated with and built on top of your race results. Track and communicate with training partners, club and team members, favorite vendors and more.

Athlinks was originally called VirtuRace.com and was started in February of 2005. In its original state, the site was primarily an event and results database. In October of 2006, we re-launched with the new name Athlinks with the added social features that you see today.

First, make sure that you are a member. We list literally millions of athletes in the database, but not all are members. Athlinks members are designated by a red flame next to their name.

If you have a member’s flame next to your name, it is likely that you were a member of VirtuRace.com – which we changed our name from in October of 2006. We kept all member information in-tact during the changeover.

If you do not have a member’s flame next to your name, then we have you in the database because we aggregate race results around the world in order to build the largest and most integrated results database on the planet. If you would like to remove your name from the database, please contact us with your name, age, and location as it appears in our database and we will hide it from view.

To cancel your membership, send an email to memberships@athlinks.com along with your username. We will follow up via the email on record to remove your account details.

Of course you can. Because the place values in the results database depend on your and every other result, we simply obscure your results by changing your name to “Unknown Racer” – which keeps the age and gender information in tact so that the results placings remain unchanged and true.

No problem. The most common solution that our members have taken for this is to simply use an Alias (like RunnerMan or UKTriGuy) for their display name. This will effectively hide your name from other members as well as search engines.

We send out very little “default” email on the site. We send a weekly newsletter which you can opt-out of on your settings page. Additionally, you will receive emails in response to requests. For instance, when you submit a results merge request or a friend request, you will receive a message in your Athlinks In-Box as well as a copy in your email.

Adding a photo, bio/quote, updating your home town, display name, and date of birth are all done from your Settings page. Click the “Settings” link in your toolbar.

When you send out invitations through the site, your friends will be added to your friends list automatically when they join. To do so, simply click on the “Invites” link in your toolbar. From there, enter the email address(es) of the friend(s) to whom you would like to send invitations.

They will receive an email invite from Athlinks on your behalf with links to join and to your profile.

Members have access to the Results Merge Tool. From your profile page, click the Merge Tool link below your profile picture. From there, you can search for your name. Be sure to include any spelling variations that you use when registering for races.

From the returned list of athletes, you can either merge directly or see the underlying results for each athlete listed before merging. To do so, select each athlete and click “View Results”. From there, select the athletes and/or results that you would like merged to your account.

The request then gets packaged and sent directly to our data team who takes a quick look at your request to make sure that it looks correct (and that you are not accidentally claiming someone else’s results) and then approves the merge which moves the results to your account.

In order to keep the database as accurate as possible and to give you the opportunity to claim your results when you sign up, we inherit the state/province and/or country from the race in which it was run. The exception obviously is when the race director explicitly gives your home state.

We do this so that we do not “over merge” accounts based only on name and age. Otherwise, the 35 year old “John Smith” could have hundreds (or thousands) of results from all around the world.

To remove results for race that does not belong to you, simply click on the red “X” icon to the left of the result on you “My Results” page. You will be prompted to confirm and the result will be deleted immediately.

Our data team does its best to add the latest results from the weekend in the first half of each week. We are naturally at the mercy of the timing companies and race directors, so if they are not posted or sent right away, there may be delays.

The best ways to speed up and/or ensure that your results are added quickly, following is a list of tips:

1. Make sure ahead of time that the event exists in the database.
2. Email us the results or a link to the results once they are posted to the official site or are available for download.
3. Use the Add A Race link at the top of the site.

Mini-reports are a great way to quickly classify and archive your race results. In fact, if you do nothing else on the site, you should at least complete your Mini-Reports for each of your races.

With the mini-report, you can set the race Importance (A, B, or C), Rate your performance (1-5 Stars), give a brief write-up or store your notes/thoughts on the day’s performance, and catalog the gear items used in the race.

Race Importance is also used on the Rivals filter, so it is important to set these values.

Adding a friend is actually quite easy. To do so:

1. Both you and the friend must both be members (identified by the red flame icon in search results and on profile page next to name).
2. On the friend's profile page, click "Add <name> as a friend" from the links below the profile picture.
3. Follow the instructions on the type of relationship that you would like to set up.

Click here for complete documentation.

The difference between confirmed and watch list friends is in way that others see the relationship. Confirmed friends show up as your friends to whoever views your profile. Watch List friends do not show up as friends when others view your profile.

Yes. When you add friends, you can set up one or more groups into which to add your friends. This lets you maintain different groups like “Training Partners”, “Family” or “Teammates”.

If you find that you need to move a friend from one group to another, go to your “My Friends” link in your toolbar. From there, use the group name pull-down next to the athlete(s) in question. Set it to the value that you want and click the “Save” button.

Note: the maximum number of friends that you can show on your home page is limited to nine.

To choose which friends appear on your Profile page, go to your “My Friends” link in your toolbar. From there, use the home order pull-down next to the athlete(s) in question. Set it to the value that you want and click the “Save” button. If you select more than nine friends, the order for the bottom-most selected friend will be turned off to make room for the new addition.

To remove a friend, simply click on the “Remove” link next to the friend that you want to delete on your My Friends page.

Rivals are chosen by our servers by finding each athlete against whom you have raced a minimum of three times. It then cross-references each of those results and calculates your win/loss record against each athlete.

As such, you cannot directly add rivals unless it is an athlete that you have raced against.

Yes, you can set the criteria for which a Rival is chosen. To do so, from your Rivals page, click on the “Set Rivals Filter” link. On the Filter Worksheet, you can set the Age Group(s), Gender(s), and Location(s) to include as Rivals.

Also, you can choose the Race Importance on which to filter results. This lets you throw out other athlete’s C races, B races, and/or undesignated races.

Incidentally, you set your race importance on your “My Results” page using the Mini-Report worksheet.

Note: the maximum number of rivals that you can show on your home page is limited to nine.

To choose which Rivals appear on your Profile page, go to your “My Rivals” link in your toolbar. From there, use the home order pull-down next to the athlete(s) in question. Set it to the value that you want and click the “Save” button. If you select more than nine rivals, the order for the bottom-most selected friend will be turned off to make room for the new addition.

We list results from time-based endurance races. This includes all running, cycling, triathlon/Multisport, mountain bike, and swimming races. Additionally, we can post race-walking, inline-skating, cross-country skiing, and some adventure races. We are limited to time-based (as opposed to distance based) races. Also, team-based results are currently a problem for us. We base all results on the individual athlete results, so team- or relay- based results are not always correctly split to each athlete profile.

Yes. In addition to searching for an Event by name (Event Search), you can use the “Advanced” search option to find an event by date, location, and race category.

Click on the “Advanced” search tab in the page header of the site.

Absolutely! We strongly encourage you to take a look at the event calendar in your area and take a moment to add any and all missing races to the calendar.

To add a race to the calendar, click on the “Add A Race” link in the page header and follow the instructions on screen to add the race.

The best way to help us build the Athlinks results database, please take a look at the event calendar for your area and take a moment to add any and all missing races to the calendar.

To add a race to the calendar, click on the “Add A Race” link in the page header and follow the instructions on screen to add the race.

1. Add the banners to your site. Click here to download the banner code.
2. Link to your profile from your web site or blog.
3. Wear the gear to events. Click here to purchase a t-shirt.
4. Put a window decal on your car, race wheels, travel case, or anywhere else it will fit. Click here to purchase a window decal.
5. Hand out the flyers at your next race. Click here for the downloadable flyer.