Triathlon
A triathlon is an endurance multisport race consisting of swimming, cycling, and running over various distances. Triathletes compete for fastest overall completion time, racing each segment sequentially with the time transitioning between the disciplines included. The word is of Greek origin, from τρεῖς, 'three', and ἆθλος, 'competition'.
The sport originated in the late 1970s in Southern California as sports clubs and individuals developed the sport. This history has meant that [|variations] of the sport were created and still exist. It also led to other three-stage races using the name triathlon despite not being continuous or not consisting of swim, bike, and run elements.
Triathletes train to achieve endurance, strength, and speed. The sport requires focused persistent and periodised training for each of the three disciplines, as well as combination workouts and general strength conditioning.
History
The evolution of triathlon as a distinct sport is difficult to trace with precision. Many, including triathlon historian and author Scott Tinley, consider events in early 20th-century France to be the beginnings of triathlon, with many three-element multisport events of differing composition appearing, all called by different names. The earliest record for an event was from 1901 in Joinville-le-Pont, Val-de-Marne, it called itself "Les Trois Sports". It was advertised as an event for "the sportsmen of the time" and consisted of a run, a bicycle, and a canoe segment. By 19 June 1921, the event in Joinville-le-Pont had become more like a standard triathlon, with the canoe segment being replaced with a swim. According to the newspaper L'Auto, the race consisted of a run, a bike ride, and the crossing of the river Marne, all staged consecutively and without a break. Throughout the 1920s, other bike, run, and swim events appeared in different cities, such as the "Course des Trois Sports" in Marseille and "La Course des Débrouillards" in Poissy. These multisport events continued to slowly spread and grow in popularity; by 1934, Les Trois Sports was being hosted in the city of La Rochelle, though it consisted of three distinct events, swimming a channel crossing, a bike competition around the harbour of La Rochelle and the parc Laleu, and a run in the stadium André-Barbeau. Throughout this growth with new events appearing, no unified rules ever existed, and as a whole, triathlon remained a minority event on the world stage.Modern beginnings
The first modern swim/bike/run event was held at Mission Bay, San Diego, California, on September 25, 1974. The race was conceived and directed by two members of the San Diego Track Club, Jack Johnstone and Don Shanahan. Johnstone recalls that he was a part of the '70s jogging craze in America and that after entering a few races, he was not regaining his "mediocre fitness" despite having been a member of the 1957 Collegiate and AAU All-American swim teams. Then in 1973, Johnstone learned of the Dave Pain Birthday Biathlon, a run followed by what was billed as a quarter-mile swim. The following year, after competing in the event for the second time and placing in the top 10, Johnstone desired more of this style of race and with equal emphasis on the swim. So, he petitioned the chairman of the San Diego Track Club, who told him he would add a race to the club calendar. The rest of the race was up to Johnstone to organise, though, and at the same time, he was to contact Don Shanahan, so there would not be too many "weird" races on the club schedule. Shanahan told Johnstone that he wanted to include a biking leg to the race; whilst hesitant, Johnstone agreed to the addition. When naming the event, the pair used the unofficially agreed naming system for multisport events, already used for pentathlon, heptathlon, and decathlon. So, they used the Greek prefix tri for the number of events, followed by the already familiar athlon, hence naming the event the Mission Bay Triathlon. Neither founder had heard of the French events; both believed their race was a unique idea.On Wednesday, September 25, 1974, the race started. It began with a run of a loop, followed by biking twice around Fiesta Island for a total of. Entrants would then get off the bikes, take their shoes off, and run into the water to swim to the mainland. That was followed by running in bare feet, then swimming again along the bay, then one last swim up to the entrance of Fiesta Island, and a final crawl up a steep dirt bank to finish. Most participants were not skilled swimmers, so Johnstone recruited his 13-year-old son to float on his surfboard and act as lifeguard. Some participants took longer than expected, and it began to get dark as they finished their swims. Shanahan recalls they pulled up a few cars and turned on the headlights so the athletes could see. Johnstone and Shanahan were surprised by the large number of entrants, mainly coming from local running clubs. Two notable entrants, Judy and John Collins, four years later founded the event that brought international attention to the new sport: the Hawaii Ironman.
European migration
The first European triathlon was held on 30 August 1980 in Plzeň, Czechoslovakia. The Netherlands, Belgium, and West Germany followed, each of them hosting an event in 1981, but media coverage of these events was almost nonexistent.Then in 1982, event organiser IMG, working in partnership with the American channel CBS, created a new event that would take place in Europe. The initial aim was to establish a new premier competition, the European Triathlon, with the goal of being of the same size and prestige to directly compete with that of Hawaii. Originally, the event was to be hosted in Monaco, but with the death of Princess Grace in September 1982, the previous agreements fell through. IMG refused to cancel the event, so it was reorganised to be hosted in Nice, France. The first Nice Triathlon was held on 20 November 1982, where 57 competitors took the start, for an ill-defined competition that consisted of of swimming, of cycling, and running a marathon. In December of that year the national television station France 2 broadcast a program, Voyage au bout de la souffrance which detailed the events of the Nice Triathlon. This program introduced the sport to the general public. Some fans of traditional sports strongly criticised this new practice, as seven of the entrants were hospitalised due to the swim, as the temperature of the Mediterranean was only. Despite this criticism, IMG's plan succeeded and throughout the 1980s. The Nice Triathlon was, alongside Hawaii, one of the two important long-distance races each year for both prize money and media attention.
The year 1985 had the creation of the first international triathlon structure, the European Triathlon Union, with the objectives to federate the triathlon structures in each European country and to act as a counterbalance to American triathlon in the creation of a future worldwide federation. The following year, the 11 nations that composed the ETU met in Brussels to standardise the national structures of each European country. During this time, France dominated discussions, as it was the only federation recognised by its own National Olympic Committee. With the legitimacy from CONADET, forerunner of the French Triathlon Federation, which has been organising triathlon in France since 1984, the French system became standard all over Europe.
A global federation
The first attempt to create a global triathlon entity was the Triathlon Federation International, it had only 22 members, most of which were national European federations. But immediately, fights of influences broke out between the European and UK-American federations over many issues, particularly in view of a favourable vote system for the ETU; this caused immediate fracturing and the TFI never fully establish itself.Around the same time, Canadian Les McDonald held talks with Juan Antonio Samaranch, then president of the International Olympic Committee. Samaranch had already declared his intention to add triathlon to the Olympic Games as fast as possible, and assured that triathlon could appear as a demonstration sport at the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona, but only under the auspices of the International Union of Modern Pentathlon and Biathlon. Many within the triathlon community were unhappy with the arrangement, wishing for their own federation not to be held as part of UIPMB. Unable to accept the offer, Samaranch established an Olympic working committee for triathlon in an effort to form a consensus on an Olympic route for the sport. McDonald was selected as president of the committee, while Sweden's Sture Jonasson was elected as secretary.
Then in February 1989, an informal meeting was held in Vancouver, Canada, where members of the working committee worked nonstop for a week on the statutes and regulations of the future International Triathlon Union. Then on 1 April 1989, 30 national federations attended the first ITU Congress in Avignon, France. After further discussions on the way forward to reach the Olympics, including the refusal to follow the path of the UIPMB and how triathlon should develop both economically and as a sport, the Congress endorsed the creation of the ITU and elected its first executive committee. McDonald was elected president. The city of Avignon was also given the honour of hosting the first world championship.
In 1991, the IOC recognized the ITU as the sole governing body for the sport of triathlon at its 97th session in Birmingham, UK. In 1993, the Pan American Games approved triathlon for competition at the 1995 Pan Am Games in Mar del Plata, Argentina. Then in September 1994, triathlon was added to the Olympic program as a medal earning sport at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia.
Organisations
The International Triathlon Union was founded in 1989 as the international governing body of the sport, with the chief goal, at that time, of putting triathlon on the Olympic program. The World Triathlon sanctions and organises the World Triathlon Series and the World Triathlon Cup races each year, with annual world champions crowned each year for elite professional triathletes, junior pro triathletes, and age-group athletes. World Triathlon races are conducted in a draft legal format for the bike leg, whereas drafting is not permitted at the amateur level. In addition, the ITU has a Long-Distance Triathlon series.The World Triathlon Corporation is a private company that sanctions and organises the Ironman and Ironman 70.3 races each year. These races serve as qualifying events for their own annual world championships. The Ironman World Championship is held annually in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, in October, while the Ironman 70.3 World Championship is held in September and changes location each year. The "Ironman" and "Iron" brands are property of the WTC. Therefore, long-distance multisport events organized by groups other than the WTC may not officially be called "Ironman" or "Iron" races. For its part, the ITU does not sanction WTC races; however, USA Triathlon uses a combination of World Triathlon and WTC rules to sanction WTC's branded events.
Many other organisations exist beginning with local clubs that may host a single small race once per year to companies like the Challenge Family brand that produces long-distance events around the world, which includes events like Challenge Roth. International Ultra-Triathlon Association is the official governing body of Ultratriathlon, which involves triathlon in distances longer than an iron-distance race. Additionally, each nation, generally, has a sanctioning body for triathlon events in their respective country with regard to athletes competing and qualifying for Olympic competition.
The Professional Triathletes Organisation, an athlete-owned body that represents non-drafting professional triathletes, was launched in 2016. The organisation focuses on promoting the athletes and their performances with high-quality international broadcasts. In 2022 The PTO launched the PTO Tour, the first series of pro-triathlon 'majors' each with a prize purse of $1M including the PTO Canadian Open, Collins Cup and PTO US Open. A unique aspect of the Professional Triathletes Organization is that it is an athlete-owned entity.