Triathlon anyone? (contains cycling)

Lichtblick

Olympic Triathlon:

Swim 0.93 mile (1.5km)
Cycle 25 miles (40km)
Run 6.2 miles (10km)

In Chrissie Wellington*'s book, Ironman Triathletes don't do the Olympics, because they're too easy.

Ironman:

Swim 2.4 miles (3.9km)
Cycle 112 miles (180km)
Run a full marathon 26.2 miles (42.2km)

All in 8-17 hours with strict cut-off times between each discipline.

*Winner of the Ironman Hawaii World Championship at her first attempt, less than a year after turning professional

Pross

Any event is only too easy if you aren't trying hard enouhh.

greasedscotsman

Lichtblick wrote:

Winner of the Ironman Hawaii World Championship at her first attempt, less than a year after turning professional

Can't be that hard if you can win it at your first attempt with less than a year's training.

Jez mon

So she wins an event at the first attempt, less than a year after turning professional.

Not strong competition then?!

TheBigBean

Pross wrote:

Any event is only too easy if you aren't trying hard enouhh.

The length of time you suffer varies though. I think that is why Bolt kept moving down distances.

mfin

Wasn't the 'Ironman 70.3' a name change from 'Half Ironman', changed because people doing Half Ironman's didn't want to sound like half a man?? (Bit of an inference to 'if you can't manage a whole one, why don't you try to do half a one?') ...an American led name change I heard?

Lichtblick

"Can't be that hard if you win at your first attempt"

Did anyone say that about Peter Sagan winning the Green Jersey this year?
Did anyone say that about Bernard Hinault winning the Tour at his first attempt?

I would recommend reading down this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrissie_Wellington before making cheap jokes about an astonishingly gifted athlete.

Christine Ann Wellington MBE (born 18 February 1977), known as Chrissie Wellington, is an English triathlete and the current Ironman Triathlon World Champion. She holds all three world and championship records relating to ironman-distance triathlon races: firstly, the overall world record, secondly, the Ironman World Championship course record, and thirdly, the official world record for all Ironman-branded triathlon races over the full Ironman distance. She won the World Championship in three consecutive years (2007–2009), but was unable to start the 2010 World Championship race because of illness, then regained the title in 2011. She is the first British athlete to hold the Ironman Triathlon World Championship, and remains undefeated over the Ironman distance. She is the only triathlete, male or female, to have won the World Championship less than a year after turning professional, an achievement which the British Triathlon Federation described as "a remarkable feat, deemed to be a near impossible task for any athlete racing as a rookie at their first Ironman World Championships."

Or even better, read the book. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Life-Without-Li ... 1849017131

hammerite

Olympic (Standard) distance and Ironman are very different types of races, and suit different people. Not really a case of Ironmen don't do them as they're too easy (heard of Chris McCormack?).

Apart from the distances, one is like a flat stage bike race with a 10k run at the end instead of a sprint, the other is more like a time trial.

Regardless GB should be in for some medals. 2 in the mens and 1 in the womens, should really be golds too.

rick_chasey

You can sit in the wheels in olympic triathlon right?

RichN95.

Rick Chasey wrote:

You can sit in the wheels in olympic triathlon right?

Yes you can.

What I want to see is a triathlon relay, with specialists - so a GB team, for example, could be David Davies, Brad Wiggins and Mo Farah.

rick_chasey

RichN95 wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

You can sit in the wheels in olympic triathlon right?

Yes you can.
.

Never got that.

RichN95.

Rick Chasey wrote:

RichN95 wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

You can sit in the wheels in olympic triathlon right?

Yes you can.
.

Never got that.

Me neither. They don't even put some hills in.

rick_chasey

I get that there's a similar settup in swimming - you can draft, but it's not remotely the same is it?

knedlicky

Rick Chasey wrote:

RichN95 wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

You can sit in the wheels in olympic triathlon right?

Yes you can.

Never got that.

You can in most ‘Pro-Tour’ events, or whatever they’re called in the Triathlon world, but you can’t always at many events at amateur level, where there doesn’t seem to be any definite rule.
At most events in one country you can, at most events in another country you can’t. The scene is a bit confused.

knedlicky

hammerite wrote:

Olympic (Standard) distance and Ironman are very different types of races, and suit different people. Not really a case of Ironmen don't do them as they're too easy (heard of Chris McCormack?).
Apart from the distances, one is like a flat stage bike race with a 10k run at the end instead of a sprint, the other is more like a time trial.
Olympic (Standard) distance and Ironman are very different types of races, and suit different people.

Your analogies strike me as very simplified, e.g. many Olympic Standard courses include hilly bike routes, sometimes hilly running 10 Km routes too.
But the main thing about the full Ironman is that it doesn’t follow the ideals of the Olympics, in that a normal trained athlete can’t easily do it.
If you were to include the Ironman in the Olympics, you might as well also include equivalents of the Race-across-America cycle event or the Sahara-Marathon running event.

Gazzaputt

24. One shall NEVER, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE, associate with triathletes. This cannot be overemphasized! It is FORBIDDEN to have any number inked onto one’s body before a race.

25. Any physical activity other than cycling is STRONGLY FROWNED UPON. This includes any form of running or swimming and their derivatives (this includes walking). The ONLY TWO other sports with a recognized degree of euro are: cross-country skiing and long track speed skating.

27. In a circumstance where any cyclist (specifically TRIATHLETE) ever displays aggression or disrespect towards a Euro Cyclist, he is required to ride up uncomfortably close to his foe and slap them in the face with his team issue gloves. In the case of a triathlete, their atrocious bike handling skills will cause them, in all likelihood, to collide with the nearest tree while the Euro Cyclist rides calmly on.

jibberjim

Rick Chasey wrote:

RichN95 wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

You can sit in the wheels in olympic triathlon right?

Yes you can.
.

Never got that.

It's because swimming is a drafting sport that you can't stop, so people will always arrive at the start of the bike together, and then splitting the group up into riders 10+m apart would take ages and not very practical, not enough room to overtake etc. The only way to run it with drafting disallowed is for TT style starts directly from the swim. And that's a bloody dull sport. So now it's just drafting until the run. There are some very hilly bike courses, Beijing was 4 years ago, Madrid is every year on the pro circuit, they should've tried to make Hyde Park course tougher to suit all the Brits, but it's not too easy in central london.

Monty Dog

Elite / Olympic triathlon is a chore - it's a 10k run preceded by a swim and a bike ride - event organisers do themselves no favours by making the courses flat and boring. I was a runner and cyclist before I did my first triathlon in 1987 - it was new, fun with great cameraderie - we'd travel around the UK to do the small number of races.
These days it's often full of hyper-competitive types who bore you to death about how tough it is, assuming that endurance sports didn't exist before triathlon, they still think that Lance is a 'god' and despite the hours of training they do, don't have the ability to ride a bike without crashing ;-)

disgruntledgoat

Our Sport presentation at work went into mind numbing technical detail about all the Commonwealth Sports included in the Olympics... Drafting was introduced to allow teamwork and introduce more of a head-to-head competition rather than making Triathlon a Time Trial.

The downside of this is that drafting in a Tri will obviously all end in tears as none of them can ride a bike in a straight line.

disgruntledgoat

From the Guardian Live blog

The transition is one of the highlights of the triathlon

Says it all really. :?

mattshrops

Although i would give huge respect to someone like Chrissie -4 time world champ.

Unfortunately triathlon is ALL about the run, it always is, always will be. Therefore it only counts as an interesting sideshow ala athletics

Pross

mattshrops wrote:

Although i would give huge respect to someone like Chrissie -4 time world champ.

Unfortunately triathlon is ALL about the run, it always is, always will be. Therefore it only counts as an interesting sideshow ala athletics

Less so on the longer distances where there's no drafting on the bike. We've got a bloke at our club who is international standard but moved to half ironman for that very reason.

mattshrops

Pross wrote:

mattshrops wrote:

Although i would give huge respect to someone like Chrissie -4 time world champ.

Unfortunately triathlon is ALL about the run, it always is, always will be. Therefore it only counts as an interesting sideshow ala athletics

Less so on the longer distances where there's no drafting on the bike. We've got a bloke at our club who is international standard but moved to half ironman for that very reason.

Yep. at amateur level and long distance its a whole different game. Got a married couple at our club who do ironman(they did Nice recently) Loads of respect for the sheer level of training required in 3 different disciplines ,over those distances, whilst holding down a full time job. :shock:

greasedscotsman

Lichtblick wrote:

"Can't be that hard if you win at your first attempt"

Did anyone say that about Peter Sagan winning the Green Jersey this year?
Did anyone say that about Bernard Hinault winning the Tour at his first attempt?

I would recommend reading down this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrissie_Wellington before making cheap jokes about an astonishingly gifted athlete.

I would say they were obvious jokes rather than cheap, think you need to lighten up a bit. There is always the triathlon part of the forum if you want to talk about them.

Lichtblick

You're right, greased. I get a bit carried away sometimes. Apologies.

hammerite

knedlicky wrote:

hammerite wrote:

Olympic (Standard) distance and Ironman are very different types of races, and suit different people. Not really a case of Ironmen don't do them as they're too easy (heard of Chris McCormack?).
Apart from the distances, one is like a flat stage bike race with a 10k run at the end instead of a sprint, the other is more like a time trial.
Olympic (Standard) distance and Ironman are very different types of races, and suit different people.

Your analogies strike me as very simplified, e.g. many Olympic Standard courses include hilly bike routes, sometimes hilly running 10 Km routes too.
But the main thing about the full Ironman is that it doesn’t follow the ideals of the Olympics, in that a normal trained athlete can’t easily do it.
If you were to include the Ironman in the Olympics, you might as well also include equivalents of the Race-across-America cycle event or the Sahara-Marathon running event.

Well yes the analogies are terribly simplified. Regardless of how tough the bike course is though in elite races you rarely get riders who commit to put everyone else under pressure so even then they ride as a group and it comes down to whoever is fastest/strongest on the run.

The last time I can remember was Stuart Hayes when he won the ITU race at Kitzbuhel a couple of seasons ago by hammering the bike leg.

knedlicky

mattshrops wrote:

Pross wrote:

mattshrops wrote:

Unfortunately triathlon is ALL about the run, it always is, always will be.

Less so on the longer distances where there's no drafting on the bike.

Yep. at amateur level and long distance its a whole different game.

I recognise it usually all comes down to the run, but that’s partly because of drafting during the cycling, so explains why often many start off the run together, like happened today.

Also one’s bound to feel it all comes down to the run when it’s the last part of a triathlon, but it’s not necessarily the case – if one looks at the change-over times, one finds some of the best swimmers/runners lose their chances during the cycling (I know this happens from the odd event I've entered, and today Haug was as fast as Norden and Densham in the running, and about 10 others were faster in the swimming than the final medal winners, but all lost time in the cycling).
It’s unlikely to happen, but perhaps the order should be changed, so running was first or second in a triathlon?

In duathlon events, less drafting during the cycling occurs because the first run spaces the participants out far more. Even if drafting does then still occur, the groups aren’t usually that large, so everyone has to work to hold the advantage. Today the group was so large, Jenkins and several others were just sucked along.

From that aspect, Spirig was a worthy winner today, because she was often at the front in the cycling.
Still it's a pity they couldn't give two Golds, since Norden had an identical time to the nearest 1/100 of a second. But apparently Triathlon rules state there can only ever be one winner.

cougie

Ironman is hard, but Olympic distance is just as hard - its just more painful but for less time. I do IM racing, but I'd not pretend its harder than the smaller distances.

You'd not get Cav taking the pee out of Hoy as he races less distance would you ?

I'm looking forward to the Brownlee boys this week - they're amazing athletes.

Monty Dog

I have close friends who race triathlon at GB Age-Group and Elite levels- I know it's a tough sport, primarily down to the intensity and volume of training required. I have concerns at the levels of injury experienced by athletes on the elite programme - the levels of career-limiting injuries is very high - some of it down to poor coaching of young athletes who are asked to push still-growing bodies through massive stresses. You also get the hyper-competitive types who jaw-on about how good they are - the people I avoid in business 'cos they're knobs - and who would simply get belted in a bike race - cycling is a far more 'honest' sport IMO.

shinyhelmut

mattshrops wrote:

Although i would give huge respect to someone like Chrissie -4 time world champ.

Unfortunately triathlon is ALL about the run, it always is, always will be. Therefore it only counts as an interesting sideshow ala athletics

Not totally true, If you can't keep up with the main pack I the swim then it's game over.

As for the bike, here's an interesting (if you're a numbers geek like me) comparison of the power files of an athlete at San Diego world cup race (drafting) and life time fitness (non-drafting).

http://www.slowtwitch.com/Features/Draft_Legal_vs_Non_Drafting_2794.html

disgruntledgoat

Awesome... A guy falls off going in a straight line, taking another guy with him within 2 minutes of starting the bike.

I love when my prejudices appear before my very eyes.

Is Dan Francis racing?