How do you certify a swim course? GPS? A range finder type of laser measurers?

Here's what I found on US Master's swimming in regards to open water swim venues:
The event host shall measure and mark the course as accurately as feasible.


ETA: Of course if the bike was 112 and the run 26.2 we wouldnt be having this conversation if it turned out the swim was 1.2% off.

So bringing up "certified" courses is kinda wonky in respect to triathlon as it deals with 3 different elements (one of which can never actually "certify" to the degree that yall are suggesting for the bike/run so kinda makes the whole point moot to begin with). But again, if this was a full bike and run we'd have no issue with the swim being off as long as it wasn't "downhill".

---

Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

I would say in most cases you probably can't. Certainly not when the swim requires buoys instead of landmarks. I've done races where the weather causes the swim course buoys to move overnight rendering the course longer/shorter. After the race is over, who is to say the buoys were in the right place?

But for running and cycling, it is not difficult. Even forgoing something as accurate as USATF certification, in the very least something as simple as a basic effort to ensure that that the bike or run course is within a tenth of a mile or so of the distance would go a long way towards making IM seem a lot less ridiculous.

And if you aren't going to do that, to then try to have a "World Best" that you officially endorse... I just don't understand the point.

For all the talk there is here about placing and getting on the podium or getting a Kona slot, most of the people I know who do multiple IMs don't tend to make it there. When I ask a friend how they did in that IM, the first thing I usually hear is the time. The splits. ("Oh my swim was good, 5 minutes slower than last time but my bike was 10 minutes faster... blah blah."). The time matters to them. So the distance matters.

I've done 2 races, out of about 110, that had very accurately measured courses. In the first race, they used solid, non-stretch rope and tied 250 1-gal milk jugs to the rope at 3-m intervals, e.g. 750 m out, then back on other side. In the second race, the RD measured out 1500 m down the beach and had us walk (or swim if you like a nice, long 1500 m warm-up) down to the start, then the race started and we swam parallel to the beach back to the transition area. So, accurate swim courses can be laid out but they just require attention to detail and some effort on the part of the organizers.

You make an extremely valid point that, had the swim been off by the same as the bike, no one would have said a word. If we take the bike course at 109.5 mi, then 2.5/112 x 100% = 2.23%. An equivalent swim would be 0.0223 x 4224 yd = 94 yd short. No one would even be able to tell if the swim were 94 yd short. :)

---

"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

I think your question is clear.

The only question I would consider adding is:

Would your answer change if the question was what is a long course triathlons / irondistance triathlon.

Hope this is useful.

Thanks

 I guess an ironmam is for many people diffrent things there is not one answer.
What is sure is that ironman cant be the same as what it set out to be as the branded races are to big for that.
The drafting will always have an bigger impact than the lenght of the course.
So what we really should discuss is how to avoid the packs and drafting advantage we get at draft legal distnace.
Or if we come to the conclusion that cant be done and have races over 500 or whatever particpants draft legal.