I believe the issue here is that the ITU adopted some UCI rules specifically for Olympic/drafting format racing.
Logically it should be quite easy for the ITU to say those UCI rules apply to all draft legal racing but are irrelevant to non-drafting races. HOWEVER, as with most governing bodies I can totally see this very simple action being mired in politics and bureaucracy and eventually getting twisted into some kind of cumbersome ridiculousness.
But, considering bike companies have just started to embrace triathlon specific/non-UCI bikes, perhaps there will be some pressure from the industry to do this right. Not only Ventum, Falco, and Diamond, but also Specialized, Felt, Trek etc. are all producing non UCI compliant "triathlon only" bikes. Considering this, and the annoyance of potential sponsors and triathlon supporters within the bike industry, hopefully IM and Challenge will pressure the ITU to be sane in dealing with this.
In the end, hell, this is triathlon not cycling so obviously UCI rules have no place. The fact that Olympic format racing has cycling-ish drafting rules confuses things...although anyone with any common sense would not be at all confused by the two very different formats.
Its all gonna come down to how controlling the ITU wants to be. Unfortunately they will probably want to use this as leverage over non-drafting events and promoters where historically they have had little to no influence. The ITU sees themselves as the International governing body of triathlon, when in reality they are the International governing body of
Olympic format racing and happen to put on some half-assed "World Championships" in a few other formats. I could see them viewing this situation as a way to exert/create authority over triathlon formats beyond Olympic/draft-legal.
Jimmy Archer
Pro Triathlete/Coach/Freelance Writer
http://www.jimmyarcher.com http://www.dirttri.com