Amidst the action at WTCS Hamburg, one very important face lurked in the crowd.
Thomas Bach, the President of the International Olympic Committee, was in attendance at the race and his presence points to a major shift in the sport of triathlon.
The President of the IOC does not just happen upon an event like Hamburg. He does not accidentally end up front and centre of the VIP box at the finish line with the best view of the athletes flying through transition. For want of a better word, he was being courted.
At its heart, international sport is a game of power and the IOC wields the biggest stick. To curry favour with the institution, sporting federations need to roll out the red carpet and put their best foot forward.
The question is, why were World Triathlon doing this in Hamburg?
The answer is simple.
They were making a play to push the Super Sprint Eliminator format into the Olympic Games.
In many respects, this followed the same playbook of how they lifted the Mixed Team Relay into the Games. The best way of showcasing a sport’s value is to put it centre-stage at the biggest race of the year. Hamburg was not an innocuous choice for the Mixed Team Relay all those years ago. It was selected as it provides the best atmosphere of the WTCS races and is the most reliable host.
The inaugural World Super Sprint Championships were taken to Hamburg precisely to exploit that atmosphere and show what the discipline could look like in front of a packed crowd.
If you want to make elite triathlon look good, you would be hard-pressed to find a better location than Hamburg.
In addition to the choice of location, you may have noticed that the event was called the World Super Sprint Championships. It was not simply a stage in the WTCS; the Super Sprint Eliminator is now a category in its own right.
This matters because labels like “World Championships” lend weight to events. Such labels matter to institutions such as the IOC. They confer a sense of legitimacy to the competition and show that the athletes racing really are at the top of their field.
By way of comparison, the World Championship aspect has sometimes held the sport of squash back from inclusion in the Olympics. The World Championships is considered on par with, and sometimes behind, the older and esteemed British Open. In most cases, the IOC want the Olympic gold to be the pinnacle of any sport. The best way to do that is to have only a World Championship to compete against.
As such, World Championships fit into the IOC’s template and now the Super Sprint Eliminator has one.
This year’s competition in Hamburg, then, was a naked power move to woo the IOC and push the format into the Olympic Games.
If that is the ultimate goal of World Triathlon, perhaps it is best to take a moment and reflect on the format. In that regard, there is one vital point to express.
As novel as it is, the model deployed in Hamburg should not be put forward in the Olympic Games.
The problems with the Super Sprint Eliminator are two-fold.
The first issue is that it invites audiences to watch the same athletes to compete over a slightly different event. The Eliminator element ensures that the athletes race for over an hour (in addition to any heats and repechages), putting it close to the physical requirements of an Olympic distance race. There is a slight change, but nothing enough to stop athletes from racing both.
Alex Yee said in his post-race interview that he is still more focused on the Olympic distance ahead of the Paris Test Event. Yet his different attention did not stop him finishing 3rd.
The format did not generate any upsets or mix up the results. The same favourites that are good at the races that last between 50 minutes and 2 hours turned out to be good at the event that consists of over 60 minutes of racing.
If the athletes are able to compete in both the Olympic distance and Eliminator, the same athletes will be able contest both events at any future Olympics. The IOC will be happy at not having to expand the slots available for triathlon while gaining another event.
The net result will simply be medal inflation at the Games.
The fact that the athletes can race both the Olympic distance and the Eliminator brings us to the second problem. While the athletes can compete in both, can they really do it to the best of their abilities?
This is not intended to be a snide remark. Hayden Wilde was tremendous on his way to victory in Hamburg, as was Cassandre Beaugrand. Yet look at the racing itself.
The first two rounds were almost entirely inconsequential for the final result. Maybe the spacing between rounds was too large. Maybe it was too small. Either way, the result was that the racing was even more constrained and predictable than the Olympic or Sprint distances.
The Eliminator is similar enough to the Olympic distance for the same individuals to thrive, yet just different enough to mean that optimum performance will be incredibly difficult to attain in both. The inclusion of the Eliminator in the Olympic Games would mean contesting both in less than a week. In turn, that would result in more constrained races settled almost exclusively on the run.
Therefore, in its current guise, putting the Super Sprint Eliminator into the Olympic Games will only give the same favourites a chance to inflate their medal hauls. It will make for less imaginative racing and cement the run as the most important way of winning races.
For the above reasons, we have argued for a dedicated Super Sprint Series and the inclusion of a true short distance event in the Olympic Games.
The semi-final/final element can stay as that adds an interesting dynamic but the Eliminator component can be cut. There can be one race in the final, one opportunity for the athletes to unleash absolutely everything over 15-20 minutes. There will be no need to hold back, to sit up after causing a mini-break, as thoughts turn to a later third round. It will just be one shot with not a second wasted.
A true Super Sprint format would also be a real physiological change from the Olympic distance which would inspire specialisation. Athletes could also focus on maximising their performance over their preferred distance. Moreover it would fit a lot more smoothly with the Mixed Team Relay.
A true Super Super event, with one semi-final (no repechages) and one final could be electric. The tactics would be so much sharper and the intensity would be a lot higher.
Whatever happens, though, whether World Triathlon proceed with the Eliminator or adjust approaches, the die has been cast.
When World Triathlon invited Thomas Bach to their party, they knew what they were doing. Now the sport has to wait and see if he took the bait.
What do you think about it all? Let us know your opinion in the comments below.
It’s difficult to say more triathlon isn’t better for the Olympics, but if it’s not creating new storylines with different protagonists I struggle to see the value. Obviously there needs to be a balance, but I think if teams adopt a similar model to track cycling with the sprint teams and pursuit teams, only with “endurance” and “super sprint” squads, it could allow more varied racing