It’s a lot easier to bike with the fast guys in the ‘elite’ wave than it is to race in your age group say
Having to swim through the previous 3 waves as well as Having to pass 100 + bikers seriously adds to your bike time
Hence the different race conditions for the elite wave
I used to think so too but if you slip stream legally past 100 people you’re going to get a pretty good draft affect right there. Same can’t even be true for the swim. If there’s enough people when you’re not swimming over bodies, there is certainly a current produced in the water.