Designed to encourage new participants to try sport, the free event was drawing close to 50 entries by Thursday morning (entries close 10pm Thursday night).

Encouragingly, plenty are newcomers.

"We've got quite a few booked for Saturday, around 40 or 45 so far. We're very happy with that," Wagga Triathlon Club's Helen Sturman said.

"Many of them, we think at least 50 per cent, have never done a triathlon before."

The triathlon is part of a statewide grant program called 'Her Sport, Her Way' which aims to reduce barriers for women taking up sport.

Part of the process was holding two mentoring sessions for interested athletes in the lead-up to the triathlon, to answer questions and ease the introduction to the sport.

"The two mentoring and practice days were really positive," Sturman said.

"They were very enlightening for everybody. We had quite good participation and there were a lot of questions, exactly along the lines that Triathlon NSW indicated to us that people would ask.

"They were questions like, what do we wear, what do we do in the transitions, how do we change into our swimmers."

The sessions helped demystify some of those aspects to the sport but Sturman said they also proved encouraging by allowing potential competitors to realise the distances are manageable.

There is a novice race - involving a five kilometre run, one kilometre run and a 100 metre swim - as well as an open even of a 10 kilometre ride, a two kilometre run and a 200 metre swim.