What is a triathlon?

A triathlon is an athletic event made up of three contests (from the Greek). In contemporary usage, the name triathlon is mostly applied to a combination of swimming, cycling and running, in that order.

In most modern triathlons, these events are placed back-to-back in immediate sequence and a competitor's official time includes the time required to "transition" between the individual legs of the race, including any time necessary for changing clothes and shoes. As a result, proficiency in swimming, running, and cycling alone is not sufficient to guarantee a triathlete a competitive time: trained triathletes have learned to race each stage in a way that preserves their energy and endurance for subsequent stages.

History

The first triathlon was held in 1974 on Mission Bay in San Diego. It was a run-bike-swim event directed by Jack Johnstone and Don Shanahan and sponsored by the San Diego Track Club. In most modern events, the three stages are held in the opposite order, primarily for safety reasons.

The first major triathlon event, the Ironman Triathlon, was organized in 1978 and held on the island of Oahu in Hawai'i. Later, the race was moved to Kona on the Big Island of Hawai'i. Today, a number of Ironman events are held around the world, and the Kona race serves as the official world championship for all Ironman races.

The International Triathlon Union (ITU) was founded in 1989. The ITU has never officially sanctioned the Ironman Triathlon and thus, there is no official world championship on the Iron-distance. This has been the subject of some controversy.

The sport made its debut on the Olympic program at the Sydney Games in 2000.

Since its founding in 1974, triathlon has grown significantly and now includes thousands of races with hundreds of thousands of competitors each year.

Types of triathlon

There are a number of standard triathlon race distances, including:

• Sprint Distance Triathlon: 750 meters swim (500m is also very common) / 20 km bike / 5 km run (sometimes called "short course", though that term more frequently refers to Olympic distance races) . The Sprint Distance is the fastest growing triathlon race distance worlwide.

·         Olympic Distance Triathlon: 1.5 km (0.9 mile) swim / 40 km (24.9 mile) bike / 10 km (6.2 mile) run (Also called "international distance", "standard course" or "short course") The official triathlon world cup is a series of olympic distance races organized and sanctioned each year by the International Triathlon Union, in 2004 it included thirteen events. These world cup races are conducted in a draft legal format for the bike leg. Many other non-official triathlon races have adopted the olympic distance format.

• Half-Ironman Triathlon: 1.9 km (1.2 mile) swim / 90 km (56 mile) bike / 21 km (13.1 mile) run. Also called a "70.3" or "Tinman."

• Long Distance Triathlon: 4 km (2.5 mile) swim / 120 km (75 mile) bike / 30 km (18.6 mile) run. This is the race format of the long distance world series of the International Triathlon Union.

• Ironman Triathlon: 3.8 km (2.4 mile) swim / 180 km (112 mile) bike / 42 km (26.2 mile) run.

How a triathlon works

In a typical triathlon, racers arrive at the venue about an hour before the race is to begin, to register for the race and set up their "transition area". Here they will generally have a rack to hold their bicycle and a small area of ground space for shoes, clothing, etc. In some races, the bicycle stage does not finish in the same place it begins, and athletes will set up two transition areas, one for the swim to bike transition, and one for the bike to run transition.

Racers are generally categorized into separate professional and amateur groups; amateurs are often referred to as "age groupers" who form the great majority of triathletes. One feature that has helped to boost the popularity of such a complex time-intensive sport is the opportunity to compete against others of one's own gender and age group. The age groups are typically set at between 5 and ten year intervals.

After transitions are set up, the athletes don their swim gear and head to the swim area - usually a lake or beach - for the race start. Depending on the type and size of the race, either all the athletes will enter the water at a single signal ("mass start", traditional in Iron-distance races), or in waves spaced every few minutes, usually by age group (wave starts are more common in shorter races where a large number of amateur athletes are competing).

The swim leg usually proceeds around a series of marked buoys and exits the water near the transition area. Racers run out of the water and attempt to change from their swim gear into cycling gear as rapidly as possible. In some of the earliest races, tents were provided for changing clothes. In the modern day, however, competition and pressure for time has led to the development of specialized triathlon clothing that is adequate for both swimming and cycling, meaning many racers' transition consists of little more than removing goggles and pulling on a helmet and cycling shoes. (And in some cases, racers leave shoes attached to their bicycle pedals and put them on while riding.)

The cycling stage proceeds around a marked course and finishes back at the transition area, where racers rack their bicycles and change quickly into running shoes before heading out for the final stage. The run finishes at a finish line usually near the start and transition areas.

Rules of triathlon

Traditionally, triathlon is an individual sport: each athlete is competing against the course and the clock for the best time. As such, athletes are not allowed to receive assistance from anyone else inside or outside the race, with the exception of race-sanctioned aid volunteers who distribute food and water on the course. This also means that team tactics, such as drafting, a cycling tactic in which several riders cluster closely to reduce the air resistance of the group, are not allowed.

This has begun to change with the introduction of triathlon into the Olympic Games. Many Olympic-distance races including the Olympics themselves and ITU World Cup events now allow drafting during the cycling stage. Although this change sparked extensive debate among the triathlon community, it is now gaining acceptance among the community and in any case appears to be here to stay.

Triathlons are timed in sections: 1) from the start of the swim to the beginning of the first transition; 2) from the beginning of the first transition to the end of the second transition; 3) and finally at the end of the run, at which time the triathlon is completed. Results are usually posted on official websites and will show for each triathlete his/her swim time; cycle time (with transitions) included; run time; and total time. Some races also post transition times separately.

Other rules of triathlon vary from race to race and generally involve descriptions of allowable equipment (such as wetsuits, which are allowed in the swimming stage of some races), and prohibitions against interference between athletes.

Triathlon and fitness

Triathletes tend to be extraordinarily fit, and many amateur athletes choose triathlon specifically for its fitness benefits. Because all three events are endurance sports, nearly all of triathlon training is cardiovascular exercise. In addition, since triathletes must train for three different disciplines, they tend to have more balanced whole-body muscular development than pure cyclists or runners, whose training emphasizes only a subset of their musculature.

Specialization of swimming, cycling and running in triathlon

Each of the elements of triathlon is a little different from if those sports were encountered alone. While amateur triathletes who also compete in individual swimming, cycling or running races generally apply the same techniques and philosophy to triathlon, seasoned triathletes and professionals have specialized techniques for each discipline that improve their race as a whole.

Swimming

Triathletes will use their legs less vigourously and more carefully than other swimmers, husbanding their energy for the cycle and run to follow. Many triathletes use altered swim strokes to compensate for turbulent, aerated water and to conserve energy for a long swim. In addition, the majority of triathlons involve open-water (outdoor) swim stages, rather than pools with lane markers. As a result, triathletes in the swim stage must jockey for position, and can gain some advantage by drafting, following a competitor closely to gain an advantage by swimming in their slipstream.

Triathletes will often use "dolphin kicking" and diving to make headway outward against waves and body surfing to use a wave's energy for a bit of speed at the end of the swim stage. Also, open-water swims necessitate "sighting", raising the head to look for landmarks or buoys which mark the course. A modified stroke allows the triathletes to lift the head above water to sight without interrupting the swim or wasting energy.

Cycling

Triathlon cycling, with the exception of Olympic triathlon and ITU World Cup races, is very different from most professional bicycle racing because it does not allow drafting, and so racers do not cluster in a peloton. It more closely resembles time trial racing. Triathlon bicycles are generally optimized for aerodynamics, having special handlebars called "aero-bars" or "tri-bars", aerodynamic wheels or other components.

Triathlon bikes use a specialized geometry including a steep seat-tube angle both to improve aerodynamics and spare muscle groups needed for running. Triathletes also often cycle with a high "cadence" (pedaling speed), which serves in part to keep the muscles loose and flexible for running.

RUNNING

The primary distinguishing feature of running in a triathlon is that it occurs after the athlete has already been exercising in two other disciplines for an extended period of time, so many muscles are already tired. The effect of switching from cycling to running can be very profound; first-time triathletes are often astonished at the bizarre sensation in their thighs a few hundred yards into the run and discover that they run at a much slower pace than they are accustomed to in training. Triathletes train for this phenomenon through transition workouts or "bricks": back-to-back workouts involving two disciplines, most commonly cycling and running.