I recall hearing about some draft-legal triathlon in Colorado "back in the day"; the 7-11 cycling team entered. Despite being crappy swimmers, they put together a TTT on the bike that gave someone on their team an insurmountable lead going into the run.

A solid team could get a protected rider home in under 3:45 and still be able to drop any attempted hangers-on, like Bjorn. :-)

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"Go yell at an M&M"

It's remarkable how USA Cycling manages to get many thousands of draft-legal bike races on the schedule each year, and on courses that'd kill most triathletes (think 4-corner crits).

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"Go yell at an M&M"

I don't recall any such race, and if it did happen it was not against the pros of the day. They would have just beaten a bunch of people like you Ken, you know MOP AG'ers...(-;

I can think of about 20 top pro triathletes, that in groups of at least 3 could ride 3:45 for a fast Ironman course. Unless those bike racers can swim better than the ones that are doing tris now, there best hope is to break even on the bike, and likely would be hard pressed to podium in their AG's.....As well as the latest world TT champion did in Hawaii, I don't thin he even got top 10 in the AG, and certainbly his bike was just above the good AG splits.....

I agree, but I think you also see very well-rounded triathletes in a time-trial format. I know it's not sexy and I guess that's what really matters in today's market, but I'm an old school guy who loves the idea of pushing myself without getting drafting help from others (either in the swim or the bike). To me, that's what triathlon is all about. I also think the time-trial format, with chip timing, is easy to implement in large AG fields and would be much safer than draft-legal AG events.

I agree, but I think you also see very well-rounded triathletes in a time-trial format.\\

No one is argueing that the non drafting guys and gals are not great athletes. My point was that the ITU people are just more well rounded in all 3 sports. Thats why people like Norman, Natasha, Torjbjorn, Bently, ect.,ect, could never do well in ITU. On the ohter hand, many ITU athletes do very well when they cross over, Macca, ALexander, McGlone, and on and on...Great ITU athletes have all the skills needed, they just need to adjust to the longer distance. Many of the top distance people do not have the swim, or the speed needed to do ITU format. It's a lot easier to build endurance than speed, and if you can't swim fast, then that is a huge hole for ITU.....

A worthy bump... ! Only 31 riders in this particular peloton.