Swimming shake-up a must for triathlon

JOHN GOODBODY: Swimming shake-up a must for triathlon

THE JOHN GOODBODY COLUMN / An authoritative and exclusive series from Sports Features Communications

LONDON, Aug 03: Being an enthusiastic, some people would say obsessive, competitor in long distance swimming and running as well as a keen observer of cycling, I hailed the arrival of triathlon on the international sporting scene in the 1980s with delight. And even more so, when it was included in the Olympics for the first time in Sydney in 2000.
However, the sport, as constituted, is fundamentally unbalanced and it is time that something was done to change it. Triathlon is supposed to be an all-round test of similar ability in the three different disciplines but it clearly isn’t. The swimming is too short. Eight days ago at the London leg of the Dextro Energy world championships series, Javier Gomez of Spain won the men’s race in a total time of 1 hour 42 minutes 58 seconds. Yet the swimming only took Alistair Brownlee, the leader after the opening discipline, 17 minutes 57 seconds, not even one fifth of the total time for the event. Gomez did 18 minutes 03 seconds. Mario Mola of Spain was 62nd in 19 minutes 01 seconds after swimming 1500 metres but his relative lack of ability in this sport did not matter because he was so close to the leaders he was able to pull himself up to fifth overall after the 40 kms cycling and, finally, the10 kms run.
Even Britain’s David Davies, who has won Olympic medals in both the 1500 metres in the pool and 10 kms in open water, would only be able to come out of the water in a triathlon in about 15 minutes 15 seconds, if that, and so would be unable to benefit from his supremacy. 
However, really good swimmers would be able to have a better chance of success if the swimming were longer, say 2,500 or even 2,750 metres.  They could then come into the cycling leg with a decent lead. As it is, the leading swimmers all finish close together and quickly form a pack to help pace each other in the cycling.
The length of the three disciplines has come about because triathlon was invented with the Iron Man event in Hawaii, which consisted of a 2 ½ mile surf swim, 100 kms bike ride and a marathon. The Olympic event has been scaled down in all three sports from that original concept. However, in understandably reducing the length of each discipline, one thing was not considered. A 2 ½ mile surf swim is a serious undertaking, immensely more testing than the equivalent distance in flat water, in which almost all Olympic-distance races are staged. In cycling, a comparison would be a course going  uphill for much of the distance. In triathlon, many slower swimmers draft off their rivals, following in their slip stream, so further reducing the significance of the discipline. 
 Those, who believe that triathlon is now established and cannot be altered, should observe how the older sport of modern pentathlon has undergone immense changes over the years. Where once it was spread over several days, now it takes place within 12 hours. And since Beijing, the shooting and running disciplines have been conflated. The sport is better for it.
Triathlon has boomed in popularity in the last 30 years but, at the moment, the structure is unfair to outstanding swimmers, several of whom might have been attracted to the sport but could have been put off because  they know they are handicapped before they even start.

** JOHN GOODBODY covered the 2008 Olympics for The Sunday Times, his 11th successive Summer Games and is the author of the audio book A History of the Olympics, read by Barry Davies, the BBC commentator. He was Sports News Correspondent of The Times 1986-2007, for whom he received journalistic awards in all three decades on the paper, including Sports Reporter of The Year in 2001.