Triathlon Pictogram

A triathlon is an endurance multisport race consisting of swimming, cycling, and running over various distances. Triathletes compete for fastest overall completion time, racing each segment sequentially with the time transitioning between the disciplines included. The word is of Greek origin, from (), 'three', and (), 'competition'.

The sport originated in the late 1970s in Southern California as sports clubs and individuals developed the sport. This history has meant that variations of the sport were created and still exist. It also led to other three-stage races using the name triathlon despite not being continuous or not consisting of swim, bike, and run elements.

Triathletes train to achieve endurance, strength, and speed. The sport requires focused persistent and periodised training for each of the three disciplines, as well as combination workouts and general strength conditioning.

History

The evolution of triathlon as a distinct sport is difficult to trace with precision. Many, including triathlon historian and author Scott Tinley, consider events in early 20th-century France to be the beginnings of triathlon, with many three-element multisport events of differing composition appearing, all called by different names. The earliest record for an event was from 1901 in Joinville-le-Pont, Val-de-Marne, it called itself "''Les Trois Sports''" (The Three Sports). It was advertised as an event for "the sportsmen of the time" and consisted of a run, a bicycle, and a canoe segment. By 19 June 1921, the event in Joinville-le-Pont had become more like a standard triathlon, with the canoe segment being replaced with a swim. According to the newspaper '' L'Auto'', the race consisted of a run, a bike ride, and the crossing of the river Marne, all staged consecutively and without a break. Throughout the 1920s, other bike, run, and swim events appeared in different cities, such as the ''"Course des Trois Sports"'' in Marseille and "La Course des Débrouillards" in Poissy. These multisport events continued to slowly spread and grow in popularity; by 1934, ''Les Trois Sports'' was being hosted in the city of La Rochelle, though it consisted of three distinct events, swimming a channel crossing, a bike competition around the harbour of La Rochelle and the parc Laleu, and a run in the stadium André-Barbeau. Throughout this growth with new events appearing, no unified rules ever existed, and as a whole, triathlon remained a minority event on the world stage.

Modern beginnings

The first modern swim/bike/run event was held at Mission Bay, San Diego, California, on September 25, 1974. The race was conceived and directed by two members of the San Diego Track Club, Jack Johnstone and Don Shanahan. Johnstone recalls that he was a part of the '70s jogging craze in America and that after entering a few races, he was not regaining his "mediocre fitness" despite having been a member of the 1957 Collegiate and AAU All-American swim teams. Then in 1973, Johnstone learned of the Dave Pain Birthday Biathlon, a run followed by what was billed as a quarter-mile (0.4 km) swim (the actual distance was only between 200 and 300 yards). The following year, after competing in the event for the second time and placing in the top 10, Johnstone desired more of this style of race and with equal emphasis on the swim. So, he petitioned the chairman of the San Diego Track Club, who told him he would add a race to the club calendar. The rest of the race was up to Johnstone to organise, though, and at the same time, he was to contact Don Shanahan, so there would not be too many "weird" races on the club schedule. Shanahan told Johnstone that he wanted to include a biking leg to the race; whilst hesitant, Johnstone agreed to the addition. When naming the event, the pair used the unofficially agreed naming system for multisport events, already used for pentathlon, heptathlon, and decathlon. So, they used the Greek prefix ''tri'' (three) for the number of events, followed by the already familiar ''athlon'', hence naming the event the Mission Bay Triathlon. Neither founder had heard of the French events; both believed their race was a unique idea.

On Wednesday, September 25, 1974, the race started. It began with a run of a loop, followed by biking twice around Fiesta Island for a total of . Entrants would then get off the bikes, take their shoes off, and run into the water to swim to the mainland. That was followed by running in bare feet, then swimming again along the bay, then one last swim up to the entrance of Fiesta Island, and a final crawl up a steep dirt bank to finish. Most participants were not skilled swimmers, so Johnstone recruited his 13-year-old son to float on his surfboard and act as lifeguard. Some participants took longer than expected, and it began to get dark as they finished their swims. Shanahan recalls they pulled up a few cars and turned on the headlights so the athletes could see. Johnstone and Shanahan were surprised by the large number of entrants (46), mainly coming from local running clubs. Two notable entrants, Judy and John Collins, four years later founded the event that brought international attention to the new sport: the Hawaii Ironman.

European migration

The first European triathlon was held on 30 August 1980 in Plzeň, Czechoslovakia. The Netherlands, Belgium, and West Germany followed, each of them hosting an event in 1981, but media coverage of these events was almost nonexistent.

Then in 1982, event organiser IMG, working in partnership with the American channel CBS (direct competitor of ABC, which held the exclusive rights to Hawaii), created a new event that would take place in Europe. The initial aim was to establish a new premier competition, the European Triathlon, with the goal of being of the same size and prestige to directly compete with that of Hawaii. Originally, the event was to be hosted in Monaco, but with the death of Princess Grace in September 1982, the previous agreements fell through. IMG refused to cancel the event, so it was reorganised to be hosted in Nice