What Three Sports Make Up the Triathlon?
What three sports make up the triathlon? A good way to guess is to think about sports that might follow each other logically in a race and which involve racing.
The triathlon consists of:
A triathlon is a competition of endurance, where the person who completes all of the steps in the fastest amount of time wins the race. Since we have uncovered what the components of a triathlon are, you now may be wondering how much time each segment of the race is supposed to take.
Distance Requirements in a Sports Triathlon
The International Triathlon Union and the United States Triathlon have agreed upon some rules for determining the length of distance which must be encompassed by the three sports in a triathlon. They have come up with four different levels for triathlons:
- Spirit distance (750 m swim, 20 km bike, 5 km run)
- Intermediate (1.5 km swim, 40 km bike, 10 km run)
- Long Distance (1.9 km swim, 90 km bike, 21.1 km run)
- Ultra Distance (3.8 km swim, 180km bike, 42.2 km run)
If you are not involved in any of these fields, or even if you are, these distances might seem outstanding and impossible to you. They are not. Quite a number of people participate in triathlons every year. In fact, a very famous triathlon competition is the Ironman.
The Ironman Sports Triathlon
To bring the Ironman to terms that you might be more familiar with, depending on where you hail from, let's look at the distances in terms of miles. The swim is 2.4 miles, the bike ride is 112 miles, and the running component is 26 miles and 385 yards. You can bet that these competitions take quite awhile to finish!
Ironman competitions take place in a number of countries, although they do tend to agree on what is standard acceptable time for the event. All of the countries except for Japan impose a strict time limit of 17 hours on the event. You might be wondering why. Well there are probably health reasons involved. A person cannot just keep racing forever and ever. Doing so would take an incredibly dangerous toll on his or her health. The race starts at 7 AM, and participants must complete the swimming in 2 hours 24 minutes, the biking by 5:30 PM, and the running by midnight. In Japan, the time limit is reduced to 15 hours.
Ironman competitions occur all over the world, but there is one main Ironman competition, which has been held every year in Hawaii since 1978. The event is generally televised, and we are sure that you can imagine that it draws in quite a number of spectators. This Ironman stays on target with the 17-hour rule held by many of the other countries. This competition is known was the Ironman World Championship. The record is currently held by Luc Van Lierde of Belgium, who completed the entire course in 8 hours 4 minutes and 8 seconds in 1996.