Mr Humphreys is the owner and event director of H Events. He runs several key events in the Hunter region each year, including NewRun and the Sparke Helmore City Triathlon.

After the postponement and cancellation of many 2020 events, he is set to deliver a third since COVID-19 brought the country to a standstill when the Maitland Triathlon is staged at Morpeth on Sunday.

The Wollombi Wild Ride mountain-biking event was held in September then the Maitland River Run last weekend.

"I'm glad to have events back," Mr Humphreys said. "This is our third and it's turning the till over but, at 300-odd athletes in an event, it's very hard to make them viable because it's just short of almost not enough to fund the event.

"So, while I'm loving the fact that we've got some events going, I just hope that in the near future they can bring back a bit of the normality. You can have 40,000 people in a stadium, yet we're only allowed to have 500 in an event, which includes all of our volunteers, all of our marshals and all of our competitors and spectators."

The Maitland Triathlon has been running for 22 years and has this year been granted qualifying status by Triathlon Australia in the long and sprint distance events for the 2021 World Age Group Championships to be held in Canada in August next year.

The event is set to be a sell-out and Mr Humphreys has asked competitors to refrain from bringing spectators due to the restriction on numbers.

"Probably nearly 30 per cent of the field are from Sydney or Central Coast way then a big chunk of people are from Newcastle," Mr Humphreys said.

"It gives people the chance for some racing this year as well as the chance to qualify for the world age group championships if they wish."

There will be three courses raced.

Racing gets underway with the long distance course of a two-kilometre swim in the Hunter River, 60km ride and 15km run followed by the Olympic distance (1.5km swim, 40km cycle and 10km run) then the sprint distance (750-metre swim, 20km cycle and 5km run).