Olympic Games triathlon: Mark Allen on water quality, the dreaded duathlon, and the BIGGEST loser of all

It’s the subject that nobody really wants to even consider, except now we have to, the looming spectre of the dreaded duathlon at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

Triathlon is named so because it has three disciplines, but recent reports coming out of the French capital suggest there remains a risk things will not play out that way in France next month.

It was revealed late last week that, just over a month out from the big dance, the water quality in the River Seine is still not good enough as it stands to stage the planned swims for the individual triathlon events and the Mixed Relay.

World Triathlon says it has “great confidence” that conditions will be good enough for the races to go ahead as planned, but right now those latest test results leave a lot of us with a nagging feeling in the pit of our stomachs.

Seine cleanup not there yet

A cool €1.4bn (£1.18bn or $1.5bn) has been spent in a bid to clean up the Seine to make it safe for swimming, for the first time in 100 years. It’s a laudable project, but as yet it does not have appeared to have achieved that goal. And time is running short.

I am not a scientist, so the biological nuances here are not my forte, but what I can say with confidence is that if races have to be downgraded to duathlons, there will be many losers.

The strategy for the races will absolutely be impacted in a major way – some athletes will benefit from the change, others will lose out. The viewing public will also suffer, with the dynamic which makes swim/bike/run so great lost on the biggest stage.

But in reality there would be one loser which is bigger than all others – the sport itself.

If the race in Paris becomes a duathlon the real loser is not going to be any one athlete who could have won a medal had it been a triathlon. No – it’s the sport of triathlon. Yes, the racing will still be exciting. But the excitement will always be overshadowed by what the races weren’t, which is a triathlon.

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A second-rate event

The worldwide viewership of the Olympic Triathlon is greater than the entire four years leading up to it combined. It will be confusing for those who are not intimate fans of the sport. It will also be a missed opportunity to inspire them to do a triathlon themselves.

The sport will look like a second-rate event, even though the switch from triathlon to duathlon would be of no fault of the sport.

Think of it this way. What other sport in the Olympics would tolerate the entire format of it being changed at 3:00am the day of competition? None. Downhill skiing would never make a competitor add in a slalom to contest for the downhill gold because on the day of competition the course was icy!

My hopes for Paris 2024

First and foremost, I hope the water quality is of a high enough standard that all of this discussion will be mute. The men and women’s individual events were contested as triathlons in Paris last summer at the Test Event, and it was thrilling. I hope we get to experience that same thrill of triathlon at its top level in a few short weeks.

Secondly, if races do get contested as a duathlon, I hope the commentators do their job and explain in clear, easy to understand language what the nuanced differences are between a triathlon and a duathlon.

If they can convey that, they can still create the competitive tension as the races unfold. It will add a big level of uncertainty to the day. And hopefully they will do an Olympic level job at pointing that all out.