That will never happen, the IOC only want short easily televised events. Draft legal ITU racing was established for this reason, to get triathlon into the Olympics. He'll there has been talk for about 8 years that IOC want the Olympic distance shortened to a sprint to make it easier for television.

^^^^This (sadly)

I'd love to have an olympic IM, it could be the daunting test that marathons were earlier in the olympics. Ain't gonna happen though; IOC would balk at the cost and logistics.

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Your first question; Can those athletes who win at the ITU / short course win at IM like in the 80's & 90's era, where the big 4 were running rampant across all distances? Yes I believe they still can, the cream of ITU (such as AB) can win at ITU and IM. But he (and others) will win second tier ITU races and second tier IM's. The cream of both cannot, I believe, win at the cream of the other. What I mean by that - Super League and Sprint Distance Racing is 'the cream' of Short Course now, not OD. And there's a handful of 70.3's and IM's you'd consider the pinnacle in that discipline. Those athletes who're winning the pinnacle of short course will not win the pinnacle of long course, and vice versa. They may come close, but that time has passed, different skill sets combined with physiology and far more depth, amount to different disciplines in my opinion.

Your second question - should IM or the Half be added to the Olympic Program. That's not going to happen.

Third Question, again just my opinion, I really liked the idea of the Collins Cup, where did that go to? If they combined different athletes from different eras, across different formats of the sport, I'd be interested. But I'm just not sure even 10% of Super League followers would follow suit. So prob won't happen.

Just my opinion.

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Collins Cup? Superleague? National champs? continental cups? world cups? WTS?...this is becoming too stacked...in Spain we have already a problem with the calendar...spanish championship of this, that.... so, what elese?Island House Invitational too??? IM here, 5150, 70.3, Challengue.... long distance ITU...This is craaaazy!!!!

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Spaniard. Sorry for my english for the sensitive ones :P

Most of the top IM folks are ex-ITU atheltes, and you're seeing an insurgence of ITU folks winning 70.3s and placing well in IM races too (Brownlee, Gomez, Gustav Eden won 70.3 worlds...).

Sorry, but an IM would be the most boring olympic event to watch... The trend in adding sports to the olympic program have been short exciting events, and mixed gender relay events (The MTR checks both of those boxes). I can't see an IM or a 70.3 distance on the olympic program anytime soon.

The problem with adding another series is splitting the fields even further... You have your IM and 70.3 circuits, Challenge, ITU tour & Super League as major series out there, and plenty of smaller ones. Super League is the newest kid on the block, and they only got traction because they were throwing a ton of money around, and offered to contract athletes to travel to exotic destinations in their traditional off-season, with large paydays on offer... At this point I think if any series was added, you would need to take something else away, or you would further thin the fields, that and you would need to dig up another Russian Millionaire to pony up the funds...

Maybe wishful thinking. When Les mc got tri to the Olympics it did change the sport forever. The Wurf experiment showed the differences in the LC draft free versus ITU draft legal.

Super League feels a bit contrived, its literally the same product that was put on Australin TV screens in the 90's, it ran out of puff there.

Maybe should be happy with what we have, do feel that across the profession we have too many series/races diluting the quality of the product making it harder to market.

I may be in the minority on the forum, but IM is insanely boring to watch and there's no way the IOC would want the logistical nightmare that is IM (on top of an event that already has dozens of logistical nightmares)

Suppose they have tried many time to get this on TV and the model of FB or pay for a liev stream for ITU is where it is at. The content is what it is.

The talent is in the ITU as shown by Wurf getting smashed in low tier competition. If the ITU people trained for properly an IM they would win the IM. The ITU has no interest in helping IM and same for IM so it won't happen.


IM is sort of like a masters tour for triathlon