They do it in the Commonwealth Games, and it is awesome - even my non-triathlon friends/relatives thought it was pretty cool. It should definitely be in the Olympics.

I've watched the Hamburg event a few times on-line, and have officiated a youth/junior mixed relay event... They are some of the most exciting races to watch, and add a huge tactical layer to racing... This is a no brainer to add to the Olympics... I feel bad for whatever sport may lose an event (no offense to anyone, but I hope it's a judged sport...) to compensate. But you would be adding something unique, a co-ed event, that's super spectator/TV friendly, and is over in just over an hour... The courses are typically short and contained, that people can move between the 3 disciplines easily and see all of the excitement...

The hashtag for it is #TriMixedRelay

On a side note, I'd love to start seeing these pop up for age groupers at select events too..

i don't think it's as much of a no-brainer as you think. you correctly point out the pluses -- it's exciting, it's very spectator friendly and it's over in less than an hour. however, there are some significant minuses -- it is going to add a lot more athletes (you won't be able to field teams solely with athletes in the individual race) and triathlon only is raced competitively (ITU) in 10-15 countries. combining these issues is the question of how many teams would you accept? if you limit it to only the 10 or 15 countries who can field somewhat competitive teams (and the back-end of these 10-15 won't be competitive), then are stuck with an event giving out 3 medals to around 10 entrants. if you open it up to 40 or 50 countries so there are 40 or 50 competitors (like there are in the individual races and most other sports), then most of the field will be destroyed and not even remotely competitive. i suppose you could use the basketball model, which accepts 12 teams, or the basketball model, which accepts 16 teams, except that both sports are wildly popular world-wide so the fields are culled from pools much much deeper than the mixed relay pool. with all that being said, i hope they figure out a way to add it. athletics has both the 4x1 and 4x4 and swimming has god knows how many redundant relays but both are big ratings generators with some of the most popular athletes competing in them (bolt, phelps, felix, etc).

At Rio 14 federations sent 2 men and 2 women. I think that is a pretty decent number to field a competition without changing any of the qualification procedures. That being said, I would hate to see the sprint distance contested at the Olympics just to justify including the relay. But I think doing the individual tri in the first week and then the relay 5-7 days later would be plenty of time between races.

the 14 were: US, UK, australia, nzl, switzerland, russia, spain, mexico, japan, rsa, canada, italy, hungary and belgium (both women lapped out). i didn't realize until just now that germany didn't have a single male in rio (how the mighty have fallen).

you theoretically could field 12 teams from those 14 but the back-end would be very weak and you still would have to let in more athletes to fill out the teams. red-lining for 20 minutes is a very different skill set than doing an almost 20-minute swim and then sitting in a pack on the bike and then stumbling through a 10k, which is what probably have the field does in an itu race. basketball is very top-heavy with the USA penciled in for a medal but basketball is super popular worldwide and a tv ratings kingpin. i hope they can figure out how to get it into the olympics but i think it will be an uphill battle.

I think you'll have to look at a tighter competition window with a sport that only does 3 events. IOC likes to pretty much have competitions decided fairly quickly unless your sport is a multi-game qualification format (basketball, etc) or you have 30 events. My guess would be the men's race, women's race + MTR would all be done within a 4 day window. And remember currently the ITU does it in a 2 day window (obviously tighter window due to travel/closure restraints), that the Olympics won't have to deal with, but they likely wont keep the athletes just around for that long of a period between competitions.


Thur- men's race
Fri- Women's race
(switch them if you want women to recover more, etc)
Sun- MTR

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

In swimming there are only 16 teams entered for each relay event. 12 for the mixed team relay seems sensible.

The logistics of venue usage and athlete housing is obviously way beyond my level, but I would point out that a relay course is likely to be a much more compact course than an individual race course and compared to many sports the triathlon takes a lot less physical construction. Then swim course is also shared by the open water event and parts of the biking and running could theoretically be shared by marathon and road cycling. So I'm not saying it is a slam dunk, but not outside the realm of possibility to space the events out sufficiently.

if they go the 12-team route, then i assume each team would get something like 1 male and 1 female additions to the athletes who qualify individually (like the relay pools are expanded in athletics). i don't know what the qualification process would be because hamburg is the only race currently on the schedule. it wouldn't seem fair if hamburg were the only qualifier because it's easy for a top team to have a crash or poor result like the uk team did in 2013 with the Bs, stimpson and non. i suppose there could be a weird dynamic where a country doesn't qualify any individuals but qualifies a team who would be fresher.

They will have more races with mixte relay. It's already offered in continental championship. We can believe that the spot will be determined in at WC, CC and test event. So at the end, it's pretty close of what it is done in individual.

It has already been competed in the Commonwealth Games and was very successful. The teams had to be made up from athletes who already competed in the individual event and they only had a one day break between. With such short legs as in the relays, athletes who may not factor in longer Olympic distance can sometimes shine. Racing is a lot more 'team tactical' and the athletes are on the rivet. The unknown factor is huge, places can change dramatically from one leg to the next, It is very exciting racing. Watch a replay from the Hamburg mixed relay world champs and you will see it has quite a different appeal than regular Olympic distance racing.

it's good to know that the commonwealth games have put on a format that works. i agree that some athletes are more suited to the relay format than the individual oly format. webb probably had the best race of his life in hamburg in 2014 and it was his very first professional race.

i don't need to watch the replay as i watched it live. the format is MUCH more spectator and tv viewer friendly as there is no spinning in a pack on the bike and there's no almost 20-minute swim that's hard to follow.

I believe it would be like in the Commonwealth Games, If a country qualifies 2 male and 2 female athletes in the individual event then they qualify for the relay, no other qualification required. There were no reserve places as in swimming and athletics, the rule was the athletes had to have raced the individual event prior, no additions. This keeps numbers down and therefore costs, to both the IOC and national federations. I hope it goes ahead as I really like the format.

Yeah, as he showed last year with a lead Kanute is really suited for this.