If you think about it, there is no such thing as a sprint triathlon. Triathlon is an endurance sport…one of the longest and hardest that test an athletes muscles, athletic abilities, mental toughness, strengths and weaknesses and most importantly, endurance.
However I suppose you could design true Sprint triathlon. It would look something like this:
A fifty meter freestyle swim
One lap around a Velodrome
A 100 meter dash
Now that would certainly be a Triathlon where transitions matter. I have not seen many Velodromes with indoor pools around my neck of the woods so I wonder if this true Sprint Triathlon would have a hard time catching on. In America, the founding home of triathlon, if there is the will (and there’s money to be made) there certainly will be a way.
For all you wannabe race directors and or Nike, please feel free to take my true Sprint Triathlon idea and run with it. Just think of all the commercial possibilities for new true Sprint Triathlon gear. An entire new set of racing stuff we would buy for the true Sprint Triathlon to speed up the all important transitions like:
The Aqua Helmet
The Running Goggle
Nike’s new full-body, one-piece, super fast-dry Shark/Lance/Sprint skin complete Air racing cocoon leotard featuring built-in ear plugs and built-in biking/sprinting cleats.
Full Body Glide Spray in a Can to be able to remove Nike’s new Air cocoon after a race.
The GU Power Pellet for a super small and super fast burst of energy
The Nose Marker for marking the nose (which as it happens is the only part of the body left exposed by the Nike’s new Air Cocoon .
Breathable and brimmed swim cap.
Imskorts (swimming skirt and shorts) (Nicole Deboom feel free to run with this idea).
Plus a true Sprint Triathlon would also benefit a completely different type of body types. Most current Pros would have a hard time succeeding in this event. Let’s face it; the ideal body type for a good or great triathlete is that of a depression era Nebraska farmer.
So if you want a body of a Sprinter, we’ll need to change the focus on a real sprint event.
You would spend more time in transition than in any of the events! And even the fast and slow alike would be there all together. Might as well wear boxing gloves and headgear in the transition areas Maybe Don King can be a promoter? My take is that the Tai fighters/boxers would do best as they knock out most everyone in their way while getting their bike off the rack. They would only need to jog the 100m then …
The bike for this race might be:
Seatless
No bike shoes, just platforms you sllp your bare feet into.
No gears - a fixie.
Bike helmet - straps/buckle replace with stretchy neoprene strap.
How I’d do it:
No goggles.
Speedo brief.
I’d just run barefoot.
Leave the helmet on for the run.
20 minutes pre-race, take 1000mg caffiene.
1 minute pre-race breathe pure oxygen.
That’s sort of been done already - 1994 - Bercy Velodrome in Paris. Pool was in the middle of the velodrome, bike on the track, 400m swim, 8km bike, 3km run? Done like xc ski sprints with qualifying rounds then a final.
Track bike with sloping toptube and seatpost removed… neoprene-and-tacky-stuff coated pedals, basically comfy platforms. Maybe something like a flip-flop strap on both sides to secure the foot a bit for more power.
Stretchy-material for the helmet fastening, neoprene sounds good.
Alternatively, you could swim and ride in super-light racing flats, to go with your speedo. Plus you could potentially swim in your helmet if you got it low-profile enough.
Actually I thought up a Worlds Fastest Triathlete concept in 1982, but never did anything about it. Here is my general format.
400 meter run While not quite a 100 meter sprint still a sprinter event
and lasts about 48-60 seconds. Could be held on a track and timed
by local track club in my event.
100m/yd swim in heats at a swimming pool. Again not quite a 50 meter
sprint but certainly a sprinters event and lasts about 50 seconds to 1
min. Could be timed and run by local swim club.
1 kilo TT on the bike. Again not a true sprint (per flying 200m standard)
but a sprinter event. Run in a straight line down a flat 1 km stretch
of a road at 30 sec or 1 min
intervals. Run by the local bike club. And the event is a little over a
min in duration.
So you have three classic events, administrated by competent groups available in most any location in the world. Because they are individually timed events with seperate venues you could have huge numbers of participants. An example might be for one athlete. Swim LSU pool 0900 hrs, Bike River road 1100hrs, Run LSU Track 1300 hrs. Then you have at least 1 hr between legs and plenty of time to move venues and prep for the next event.
My plan was to have the event on Wed or Thursday before major events like USTA races, regionals, Nationals, Ironman ( maybe a week before). And have prize money. Then if you really wanted to have some fun or a championship round have the top 8-10 (depending on lanes) compete in an evening finals with awards given out for the age groupers and an after party.
I feel bad that I never pushed this idea, because it would be great fun and boy could the big time swimmers, bikers, or track folks put some serious time gaps on the field in their events. But alas the guy that wins will probably run a low 50s 400m, swim a low to mid 50s 100, and ride around a 70 second kilo. Not giving up much time in any event.
If anyone out there is interested in going with this concept PM me as I think somewhere in my pile of crap is a better outline.
Funny enough…these are the same distances that my riding buddies and I talked about when we discuss the concept of a “sprint triathlon”.
Except my idea was to do it with a “miss-n-out” format, where you pull the last competitor out the race after each repeat, give everyone 5-10min rest, then repeat…until there were only 3-4 people left in the event.
Carnage galore…I can see elbows being thrown on the run .
Well in that short of an event my idea was to run heats like a track,swim, or bicycle track event. I think the race would be dangerous and chaos to run with swimpool decks, wet tires, and transitions. I wanted to keep it simple and manageable. In that short of triathlon the 4th event ( transitions) would be a bigger influence on place and time than the actual event. And in my opinion taking the beauty of the pure sprinters speed and power away from the sport. It could get ugly really quick. And you would have to have venues with a pool, track, and stretch of road all very proximal to each other.
Perhaps you could give everyone a set amount of time for transitions like five minutes to keep it fair. That’s what we do in out “Sprint” indoor tri series. Take a look if you have a second:
Since I got started in the sport, I’ve felt there’s some serious naming issues with the races. If you asked people on the street if a 5k or a sprint sounds tougher, all of them would say the 5k even though the sprint is the 5k plus two more events. The half ironman is a crappy name too. Anything that takes that long should be called something other than half as it’s plenty on its own…and no 70.3 isn’t the answer either.
There were multiple waves for each depending on the available lanes. There was plenty of time inbetween each event, no transitions in the timing.
It was put on by an ex-pro baseball guy who will admit that anything that takes longer than a couple of miutes to complete is beyond his endurance range. I couldn’t make it but apparently it was hilarious, followed by a lot of pulled hammies and crazy crashes in the bike event.
Mass start, cross the pond swim, barefoot onto a fixed gear beach cruiser, 1 mile ride around highschool track, barefoot 1 mile sprint on track. That would be sweet. Tri meets rollerderby.
Mass start, cross the pond swim, barefoot onto a fixed gear beach cruiser, 1 mile ride around highschool track, barefoot 1 mile sprint on track. That would be sweet. Tri meets rollerderby.
Clean it up a bit.
Mass Start, cross the pond swim, barefoot run around pond back to swim start, jump on beach cruiser and 1 lap around pond bike ride.
Maybe Don King can be a promoter? My take is that the Tai fighters/boxers would do best as they knock out most everyone in their way while getting their bike off the rack. They would only need to jog the 100m then … 