dmanthree

I'm watching the cycling section of the Olympic men's tri, and there are no "tri bars" and they're drafting? Huh?

noodle soup

Drafting is legal, aerobars are not.

dmanthree

Different rules for olympic tris? In normal tris the bars are legal, drafting is not. Odd. Why change the rules?

cdnredraider

Thought I saw aerobars on one of the bikes. Either way, the course was technical enough there would have been no advantage to trying to actually use aero bars.

Doug28450

It's called a Draft Legal Triathlon. USAT sponsors some and they are the format for college, most world championships and the Olympics.

The racers use road bikes and aerobars are legal. However, they may not extend beyond the furthest forward part of the brake lever and they must be bridged at the front.

Sidney Porter

my understanding the non drafting is a USA thing. Other than the ironman races the pro races seem to be draft legal. It puts the importance on the swim (you need to swim fast enough to get in the main cycling pack) and run

ne_dan

Or you could just ride bikes and not worry about running and swimming.

TrojanHorse

Voice of reason.

Voodoo76

The Monoathalon

dmanthree

I've seena a number of tris and this is the first time I've ever seen this. The reason for the no-draft rule is to even the field and test the individual without assistance. A good swimmer and average cyclist can hang with the pack and that gives them an unfair advantage.

Jakedatc

Yep, draft legal races are a completely different game. I don't quite get the point but that is what it is.

dmanthree

Agreed. But hey, it's the Olympics. Well, at least they fixed the lane on their basketball courts.

Doug28450

This is pretty much true. Most of the big races are run under the ITU (International Triathlon Union) rules. The ITU is a draft legal series. As I noted earlier, the Olympics follow draft legal rules. In addition, the NCAA follows deaft legal rules. The upcoming school year is the first year that triathlon will be recognized as an NCAA sanctioned sport for women. In the past NCAA schools had triathlon teams, but they competed as club teams without school assistance. USA Triathlon runs a series for younger athletes to prepare them for draft races.

texaspandj

As I remember, initially in order to be considered for inclusion As a Olympic sport. Triathlon had to have so many members in their governing organization. So they invited cycling clubs around the world and had to include drafting. Or something like that, it's been years and it's very political.
Just like most sports once they they become an an Olympic sport they lose there initial purpose. Just look what happened to Taekwondo, boxing, judo etc.
Sidenote: Have you noticed how every NBC sports caster sounds like a competitors announcers e.g. dan hicks and Jim nantz. They also have dick enberg, Marv Albert, James Brown (not the singer),John tesh sound alikes.

tpero

As part of its bid to the Olympic committee the ITU developed a format that would be faster, less subjective, and more spectator friendly, hence why they do multiple laps of the bike (8 k5 laps) and run (4 2.5k laps). The draft legal aspect makes it a completely different race dynamic that increases the importance of the swim. If you have a bad swim and miss the lead bike pack, you're basically screwed. On the flip side, these guys are such stud swimmers that making the race draft illegal would be pretty difficult because they exit T1 so close together; enforcement would very difficult and likely inconsistent. The olympic committee didn't want results to be challenged/over-turned based on drafting penalties - first one to the line wins, simple.

And don't think the bike is discounted because there's drafting. In yesterday's race, 15-20 guys came out of T1 together to form the first bike pack, but the Brownlee brothers absolutely HAMMERED the pace for the first 5k, including up the first hill. This broke the pack up big time and they dropped Mola, who is one of the fastest runners in the field. In that first 5k, Mola was taken out of contention as no one wanted to work with him to catch the first group. Not to mention, a lot of the guys that "sat in" on the first bike group paid for it on the run because their legs were decimated. Ben Kanute of the US was well placed for a top 10, but finished high 20s when he blew up on the run, while his teammate Joe Maloy was in the chase pack and finished much better, so being able to sit in is not necessarily an advantage.

The draft legal format is way more exciting to watch than traditional non-draft, in my opinion, and requires a bit more strategy.

Steve B.

My understanding of the move to pack riding at the pro level, was for multiple reasons.

1) It was difficult at times to have judges along the course to stop drafting, especially on half and Ironman distances. Thus lot's of cheating they couldn't enforce.

2) The pack riding is now on a shorter course typically, almost like a criterium road race. This is logistically easier for the race organizers. One side effect of the shorter course is it's less optimized for racing while in an aerodynamic position using a tri/TT bike, more turns, etc...

Obviously not all races follow this drafting allowed/multiple loop race course concept. Ironman, AFAIK is no drafting, long course. Pretty much every tri that's run here On Long Island that I've done uses the IM system.

Steve B.

Great explanation.

And as note about swimming. If you mt. bike, swimming is an activity that'll make you a better mt. biker as it develops the upper body muscles. Stronger upper body helps with turning and general handling skills. I'm a better mt. biker 'cause I swim a lot. When I wasn't swimming as much, I was getting tired and had a harder time steering the bike, even when my legs were still strong. A very complementary sport to cycling.