And we wonder why the swim portion of many triathlons are cancelled.

I do not understand why Ironman with their rolling starts do not require a participant to verify that they can actually swim a certain time just like most major marathons require participants to prove that they ran a certain time and are seeded accordingly. Each wave would have a separte colored swim cap to identify what wave they are actually in. Not only would this be a safety feature for race organizers as they would be able to concentrate on those waves with less capable swimmers it would also insure the compentent swimmers do not have to swim over, through, around slower swimmers who accidently or intentionally seed themselves incorrectly.

I have also heard some participants purposely start in a slower swim wave at rolling starts as they believe the time they lose in the swim due to having to swim through slower swimmers is more than made up by having the slingshot affect of being able to "legally" draft through the masses and as a result having a faster bike time with a lot less effort.


Is triathlon going soft?
Criticising safety-first policies may not be popular, but increasingly foreshortened events are starting to erode entrants’ faith, argues Tim Heming
Posted: 27 September 2019by Tim Heming
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Ironman CEO Andrew Messick is categorical: “The race course has to be safe for everybody, not just people who are young and strong.” Ironman has its critics on many issues, but Messick knows this stance cannot easily be challenged. Whether it’s rough seas, blue-green algae, cold water, hot weather, flooding, landslides, bush fires or sharks, you name it, we’ve had it in triathlon in the past few years.
Nobody wants to see a sporting event end in tragedy, but neither do triathletes want to spend hundreds of pounds on a race and have part or all of it cancelled, as has been happening with increasing frequency. It can’t all be blamed on Mother Nature either. The climate might be changing, but so are attitudes to risk – predicated on an increasing blame culture – that means erring on the side of caution like never before. Competitors often sacrifice their entry fees due to hardline ‘no refund’ policies because organisers’ costs are already sunk, and everyone is left feeling compromised and underwhelmed.
There is a paradox here, though. Ironman is billed as the hardest one-day event on the planet, yet its owners preside over a finance-driven model which demands as many bodies on the start-line as possible, regardless of athletic competence.
The aspirational marketing that claims ‘Anything Is Possible’ for anyone has a flipside – it downplays the challenge. Not in the surface level hype or in the small print of the disclaimers, but in decisions on race day, where the novice who might rarely leave the pool, now encounters the swell of a sea swim, and the race director isn’t confident to proceed.
Ironman is a very different beast to parkrun, for example, that happily celebrates its average times getting slower because it encourages mass participation. A 3.8km swim, 180km bike and 42.2km run puts a severe load on anyone’s body, but the achievement of completing it has been normalised in recent years. It’s no longer the preserve of the quirky few with years of endurance sport experience and the resilience to cope with inclement conditions. Too many of us now turn up wide-eyed and underprepared. Even if organisers don’t encourage it, they have to cater for it, so when there’s a large show of hands at the start of an iron-distance race from those admitting it’s their first triathlon, there should be concern not applause.
Whether an example of society’s increasing need for quick gratification or not, we should question the impulse to go longer and harder at the earliest opportunity. Perceptions have become skewed. After all, a sprint triathlon is an oxymoron. It’s not a 100-yard dash but a solid test of aerobic capacity and a great way of racing more frequently, mastering skills and building an endurance base.
And if more of us concentrate on strengthening these foundations, then when it comes to eventually going long, it will also help instil confidence in event organisers that their triathletes are conditioned to race in testing conditions. The
result? Everybody benefits.

Wetsuits: Creating the artificial swimmer? by 1 September 16, 2013

'Is a wearing a wetsuit cheating?' This is a question that we are sure many of you have thought about at least once so we have decided to open a debate. Richard from Train2Swim has kindly given us his views below - What do you think? Do you agree? Please tell us by commenting the post!

“I felt I was swimming like a duck” - This was how I felt the first time I donned a wetsuit designed for competitive open water swimming!

I come from a competitive swimming background where I performed at a national level, so buoyancy for me has never been an issue in the water. But when it comes down to temperatures below 18 degrees I become a shivering wreck, so I bite the bullet and wear a wetsuit just to keep me warm.
When I first wore a wetsuit it shot me back to the days when they first introduced the fastskin suits to pool swimming, all manner of records were being broken from club to international and it all seemed to be down to the skin you wore on your skin. Initially this was great especially for those who could afford the hefty price tag but very quickly (even at the age of 14) I realised that these suits were starting to tarnish everything that I loved about my sport of swimming. The swimming mind set was changing from “how can I tweak my training and stroke to improve my performance” to “how can we improve the equipment we wear to make it easier for swimmers”.
For me any competitive sport is about what YOU can achieve through hard work and dedication, it teaches you that there are no shortcuts to your best performance and when you achieve your genetic potential you experience possibly one of the greatest indescribable mix of emotions,.
So even though everyone was still wearing the skins I resorted back to my trusty pair of speedo’s, I didn’t want to break records because of a suit I wanted to break records because of my own hard work.
Much to my surprise the suits were banned not long after the Olympic games the reason was the controversy caused by the large number of world records that were broken by competitors wearing polyurethane swimsuits, the next generation of the original fast skin suits. These suits were deemed to be providing an artificial advantage by increasing buoyancy and reducing drag.
So the question I ask is why are wetsuits in competitive open water or triathlon continuing to move to a point where they do the swimming for you? I can understand that from a safety point of view wetsuits give that peace of mind to any event organiser or governing body but when does it get to a point that the buoyancy in a wetsuit is cheating?
I heard a competitor at an event not so long ago state that wetsuits even the playing field in triathlon as swimming is the weakest event for the majority of athletes! When has competitive sport ever been about evening up the playing field!?
Other competitors have stated that learning to swim with the legs raised is too difficult (As a swim coach I can assure you that with the right instruction this isn’t a difficult thing to achieve) but do not fear the wetsuit company has designed a suit with extra buoyancy in the legs to tackle this issue.
For me designing products that do the work for you is no different than blood doping, it sends out the message that you don’t have to correct that kick because we can do it for you! Where is the sense of achievement in that?
At any high level event I do strongly believe that the use of wetsuits that give an unnatural advantage should be banned, this is what will “Even the playing field” and reveal our true champions.
For those starting out, using a wetsuit with a lot of buoyancy is a great way to make your first open water swim enjoyable and stress free but don’t let it become the solution to the problem. Everyone can achieve a great swim with the right training and believe you me no matter whether you are competing in the Olympics games or at a club tri doing it and finishing it knowing that you put the hard work and effort into correcting your faults will give you a greater sense of achievement than knowing that your wetsuit did it for you.
Richard Watts
Owner train2tri/train2swim
http://www.train2swim.com