TRIATHLETES ARE TYPICALLY DEFINED BY THE ACT OF COMPETING IN A RACE, BUT WE WILL KEEP GOING EVEN IF THERE AREN’T RACES TO GO TO.

Travel and the Second Wave

While there’s hope that we’ll see some return to racing in the fall, there’s also lots of reason to believe that’s a pipe dream. Ironman has moved the Ironman World Championship to next February and has also postponed the Ironman 70.3 Worlds in Taupo, New Zealand – there’s no date set for that as of yet – indicators that the company is fully aware that the likelihood of being able to put on qualifiers for the worlds is slim.

There’s also the issue of travel. What sort of world championship can you host when athletes aren’t allowed to travel to the event? Will we be allowed to jump on an international flight in the near future? Will we have to quarantine for 14 days on either side of the trip? That’s basically a month of isolation for a one day race, which is hardly feasible.

Adding to the potential challenge of a return to racing is the very real possibility that we’re going to see a second wave of the coronavirus hit in the fall, something public health officials are warning we’ll see, and preparing for.

All of which means we’re in for a change in our race habits for the next few years – we’re likely to be competing in more local races and less likely to be travelling for racecations. Messick believes that Ironman events in Canada, for example, will be filled with Canadians, with very few international competitors for the next few years.

Triathletes Want to Be Triathletes

So what does this mean for the sport? While there might not be races, it would appear that there’s still lots of us triathletes out there. We’re now a few months into Ironman’s Virtual Club, which offers athletes the opportunity to compete in Ironman VR events – and now there’s even a championship division at the events where athletes can qualify for the Ironman 70.3 World Championship. Since it was formed at the beginning of April, the Ironman Virtual Club has grown to over 100,000 members from 170 countries around the world. Tens of thousands of those athletes have been competing in each Ironman VR race, with over 1,300 having competed every weekend.

Triathlon Canada also set up a competitive cycling race series through a partnership with FulGaz, and Ottawa-based Sportstats also offered a virtual triathlon in May for athletes around the world.

We’ve also seen some of the world’s top pros compete online. Zwift has set up a pro triathlete race series on Wednesdays that have seen some of the world’s premier triathletes getting their competitive fix against each other through online racing. Lionel Sanders and Paula Findlay took the Strava KOM and QOM for the famed Mount Lemmon climb in Arizona.

In May Jan Frodeno completed an 8:34 full-distance race for charity entirely at his own home in Girona, Spain – completing the swim in an Endless Pool, the ride in a Zwift session open to the public and the marathon on his treadmill. While most of us neither have all that equipment sitting at our homes, or the ability to chat our way through an 8:34 Ironman, we have been keeping up with our training as best we can. For months Canadian athletes were using surgical tubing to maintain some swim form, sweating up their pain caves during challenging Zwift sessions and continuing their run training outside. Now we’re seeing those same athletes hit the open water as they finally get to return to swimming.

Triathletes are typically defined by the act of competing in a race, but the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic is showing us that we will keep going even if there aren’t races to go to. That said, I think it is safe to say we all can’t wait to get back to events. “Triathlon is like a family,” Ceepo’s Marc-Andre Perron said. “I think people will be starving for the chance to be together again.”