My brain is fried from working too much so this is undoubtedly a stupid question (and being asked partly for fun), but how hard would it be to have a non-draft legal Sprint World Championship where competitors compete in single lanes? I think the swim could be doable. All you would need is a lake wide enough to have 8 lanes - perhaps make it out and back. The bike is usually split up into 4 laps so you'd have to have 5km of painted lanes. This would be the most difficult, especially if it's a curvy course - some lanes would be favorable to others. The run would be fairly easy as it's shorter.

Anyway, this way you could have a SPRINT week where competitors do heats to compete for the final 8 slots on the last day. The only reason this would be better format of course is it would change it from a tactical/drafting race that comes down to the run, to a more-even race where the winner would clearly be the most talented in terms of the fastest all-round person.

I remember some group planning a closed course triathlon park somewhere in the US. no doubt it would be easier to do something like this there. Did that thing ever happen?