Recently, we received a question from one of our followers on Instagram. They were curious about the reasons behind a lack of representation in triathlon from Asia and Africa, beyond notable exceptions from Japan and South Africa.
It is a good question to ask and one that will need to be addressed for the sport to continue to grow.
Asia is currently home to over half of the world’s population, while Africa is the second most populous continent and is home to about 50% more people than Europe. By the law of numbers alone, the talent for triathlon should exist in both regions.
What, then, is currently holding back the pipeline?
To start with, it is worth acknowledging the barriers of class and finance that exist in triathlon in every country. Triathlon is not a cheap sport. Equipment is expensive, race entry fees are expensive, coaching is scarce. Until it can resolve the barriers that prevent many working families from meaningfully participating in the sport, triathlon will likely struggle to go mainstream.
Therefore, finance and access are problematic in every country and are not unique to Africa or Asia. To attribute the lack of elite triathletes from either region to socio-economic factors like wealth alone strikes as a little colonial and out-dated.
Instead, we will posit four factors that we think are holding back the sport in both continents.
Exposure
You cannot become something that you cannot see.
Models and exemplars have always been important for communities, just as pathways and visibility are all-important for people to discover new options. An obvious limitation to the triathlon scenes of African and Asia is the lack of exposure to the elite end of the sport.
By that, we especially mean a lack of exposure to live racing. An African World Cup has never taken place outside of South Africa. In a continent of 54 countries, the best triathletes in the world have visited a grand total of 1. If the other 53 countries cannot see triathlon, or experience it, where will the impetus come from for people to take up the sport?
When looking at the ASICS World Triathlon Team, we suggested that there would be value in World Triathlon taking a World Cup to Morocco. That point still stands.
Furthermore, since 2009 World Cups have been held in four Asian countries: Japan (10 races), China (10 races), South Korea (13 races) and Kazakhstan (2 races).
The example of South Korea might indicate that maybe the presence of elite races alone are not enough. However, Japan has had WTCS Yokohama to supplement its exposure to the best of the sport.
China did host the Olympics and a WTCS Final in 2011. South Africa and Japan, though, have both had more recent WTCS events.
The solution would be to bring more races to the countries. There are costs associated with hosting World Triathlon events that may prevent this, but a balance can be found.
The example of Latin America is relevant. Since 2009, there have been 19 World Cups in Mexico alone. World Cup races have also been held in Chile, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador and Peru in that time. While each of those countries has not hosted as many races as Japan or China, the sport has gone to more countries in the region.
As a result, we are now seeing the emergence of more and more athletes from the region, from Brazil, Mexico, Chile and more. Also note that Asia has over four times the population of North and South America combined. Perhaps the continent could benefit from more than three races a year with so many more prospective viewers.
Alternatively, rather than taking World Cups to Africa and Asia, World Triathlon can boost the Continental Cups in the areas. All too often we see African Cup start lists half-empty or worse. Maybe not all local elite athletes are ready to participate in some parts, but in the final African Cup of 2022 twenty women raced. That does not help the sport’s brand in countries where growth is required.
Prestige
When we refer to prestige here, we refer to two interconnected elements. The first is culture, or cultural prestige: whether the sport is socially valued in other countries. This itself is incredibly difficult to measure accurately. The second element is the availability of Olympic medals, a factor that feeds substantially into cultural prestige.
At the Tokyo Olympics, triathlon had a total of 3 medal opportunities available.
Track and field has 48 gold medals available. Swimming has 37 golds on offer. Judo and shooting have 15 golds each while gymnastics has 14. Meanwhile boxing has 13 while wrestling has 12.
It is understandable why countries like China invest more heavily in sports in which it can win more medals.
Likewise, India has significant cultural heritage in sports like cricket, badminton and wrestling. Sometimes a sport can enter a country’s psyche. In doing so it is elevated above other sports. Athletics and marathon running have become entwined with Kenyan national identity in the sporting sphere, just as track and field sprinting has in Jamaica.
To borrow from Edward Said, It is important not to “orientalise” Africa and Asia and suggest that countries in either space have exotic or mysterious cultures that do not connect with triathlon. The point here is far more basic. Once sporting success breeds national pride, a cultural prestige emerges around the sport that is hard to shake.
No matter where they are from, people like being good at things.
Would Great Britain be so heavily invested in triathlon if it was rubbish at the sport? National pride matters if a sport is to become part of a culture, even if it does so on a minor footing.
Success begets success. Once Asian and African countries taste victory in the triathlon world, more will likely follow. It is making that first step that is key.
Japan and South Africa have won WTCS medals. That helped to advance the growth of the sport in each country and now the goal should be to push more countries along that path. Jawad Abdelmoula won a medal at WTCS Hamburg in 2022 and he could be a key player in growing the sport in Morocco. Where Morocco goes, perhaps some neighbouring North African countries may follow.
We noted previously that the WTCS would benefit from becoming more consistent with its locations and not chasing the homes of its athletes. On the World Cup level, by contrast, there could be some benefit to taking sports to the homes of athletes like Abdelmoula to maximise exposure in new regions.
Another force in this process already exists: the World Triathlon Team. By sponsoring elite athletes from developing countries, World Triathlon can boost the odds of new success stories which in the long run may grow the sport.
Climate
In the book Prisoners of Geography (2015), the author, Tim Marshall, theorised that one of the crucial advantages Europe and America have had in their development were geography and climate. To a degree, this is also true of their development in triathlon.
To train and race in triathlon, one needs a particular climate range. Europe has no major deserts, no major tropical rainforests and a mostly temperate climate with four consistent seasons. Notably, there is no monsoon season. On almost every count, it is well-suited for athletes to train virtually year-round.
Summer in the Middle East or North Africa is a different prospect. In addition, the rainy season in the Congo lasts for about six months, give or take. Training outdoors in such environments is more of a challenge that the cold and intermittent rains seen in a typical European winter.
Moreover, we are entering an age of meteorological uncertainty. In 2022, the United Kingdom experienced its hottest year on record. It has also long been suggested that developing countries will bear a heavier brunt from changing climates. If already challenging environments worsen in Asia and Africa, the capacity for athletes to train may dwindle.
Floods, wildfires and storms are hitting country after country and we do not have a solution to suggest right now. The climate factor, though, links to the fourth and final factor.
Infrastructure
This point is hard to disentangle from the point of finance and class barriers that we mentioned in the introduction. However, it is different in an important respect. Infrastructure pertains to public finance whereas the cost of the sport is a personal financial burden.
The first point under infrastructure refers to facilities. If the facilities like swimming pools, running tracks, cycle paths and more do not exist, it is hard to piece together a comprehensive training programme.
Generally, countries invest in facilities for two common reasons: public health and if Olympic medals are on offer. Even then, the benefits of the facilities may not out-weigh the costs. There is also a question of having enough facilities. Most, if not all, swimmers/triathletes can relate to the frustrations of public lane swimming in crowded times. Public investment is therefore an important building block to any sport.
The second infrastructure point is a little broader. Across Africa and Asia, there are burgeoning new mega-cities and metropolises that sprawl across lands. At the same time, there are rural areas that are completely without public services.
Consider the longest part of an triathlon, the bike. If you live in a mega-city like Shanghai, Dar es Salaam, Mumbai or Abidjan, finding safe and quiet roads to cycle on will be a challenge. Even finding quiet areas where one can run may be difficult. With urban areas also come urban crime, which introduces a safety consideration and enhances the importance of facilities.
On the other end of the scale, it you are cycling in an under-served rural area and you crash, the nearest access to medical treatment may be a problem. The roads, paths and links within countries are therefore significant. In parts of Africa and Asia, there are issues of over-concentration of infrastructure as much as there are of under-concentration. As an example, you can read an analysis of Africa’s infrastructure gaps here.
An important point with regards to rural areas is the impact of climate change. In areas of weaker or non-existent infrastructure, the impacts of extreme climate will be magnified.
All of the above makes for fairly desperate reading. It does not get much prettier when you compare the World Triathlon Continental Rankings.
As per the Continental Rankings, the 10th highest ranked man in Europe has over 2800 points. The 10th ranked woman in the European rankings has over 3400 points.
By contrast the 10th highest ranked man in the African rankings has 425 points and 8 of the top-10 come from South Africa and Morocco. The 10th highest ranked African woman has 149 points and the top-10 contains 8 South Africans, one of whom retired in 2021.
In the Asian rankings, the 10th highest ranked man has 984 points and the entire top-7 comes from Japan; meanwhile the 10th ranked woman has 1012 points and 7 of top-10 are Japanese.
The disparity between Europe and Africa and Asia is therefore stark. Note that the points are not weighted by continent. This means that the highest ranked European athletes are racing more and finishing higher right now than their counterparts in Africa and Asia. The comparison between the rankings highlights the lack of depth outside of South Africa and Japan and a general lack of opportunities for athletes that are the 10th best or worse on their continent.
However a combination of public investment and exposure to World Triathlon events could help boost the sport in both regions. There is plenty of untapped potential in Asia and Africa and once the sport makes progress in each, further progress will follow. This is no lost cause. Growing the sport will require patience and investment, but it can happen.
