Olympic Triathlon

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triathlon_at_the_2008_Summer_Olympics_%E2%80%93_Men%27s

2004 Olympics results: (drafting allowed, cycling dominates - leading breakaway about 1 and a half minutes ahead. Weird, since running dominates in 2000 and 2008)

The effect is less obvious in womens events, and much stronger in recent events. Considering that it was only introduced in 2000, perhaps development of strategy?

A triathlon you can do in any order: http://www.racingunderground.com/mywaytriway/results.html

Teamwork: Look at the German mens competitors: Unger was 1s in front of Frodeno by the end of the cycling, suggesting he probably used more effort to go at the same speed! Countries enter either 2 or 3 competitors. Look at some other countries, and see whether their team worked together or not.

Breakaways: Look at the swimming results for 2008 women. The breakaway lead failed to keep her lead in the cycling, as she had to ride as an individual while a rotating peloton behind her had it much easier. Suggests that it's not worth breaking away in the swim in elite triathlon. A similar thing happened to the breakaway pair in the cycling in the mens event.

Year-on-year difference: breakaways in 2000 and 2004 fared much better. How could this be? (possible differences in course shape and geography)

Trying to find a draft-illegal event to compare, but these tend to be more amateur.

A triathlon is an event that involves swimming, cycling and running. An Olympic triathlon consists of a 1.5km swim, a 40km cycle, and a 10km run, completed in sequence - the first person to finish wins.

Here is a spreadsheet of the results from the 2008 Beijing Olympics Men's event.

Looking at the results, do you notice anything interesting?
Compare the correlation between overall position and each individual event, as well as the distribution of times within each event.
Can you give a few different hypotheses to explain any trends you see?

You may find it helpful to sort the results in various ways, plot some graphs, as well as apply any statistical techniques that you know.

Charlie says: "I sorted the data based on the running time. The top runners tend to be the overall winners. I think the ratios of the events is biased towards running."

Alison says: "I made the same observation, but I disagree, I think the reason is because running is the last event of the three and the weaker competitors fail to keep up."

Do you have any other ideas of why this trend could be? How might you find out if each of your hypotheses were true?

Here is another spreadsheet, this time containing all of the Triathlon events from the past three Olympics, starting from the introduction of the event in 2000: TriathlonResults.xls

Do these results support your hypotheses? Can you come up with any new ones? How would your initial ideas have been different if you had started with a different set of results? Are there any factors which could affect the results which differ between the competitions?

Click here to learn about a phenomenon called "drafting" which affects swimming and cycling:

Drafting is a technique where moving objects align in a group to suffer less aerodynamic drag, by exploiting the lead object's slipstream. Essentially, those objects who move behind other objects will have to do less work. In sport, this effect is most commonly seen in cycling due to the high speeds involved, and is also significant in swimming due to the thick medium (water compared to air). It is less prominent in running, because the primary work in running is not to battle air resistance, but still has a small effect.

In cycling, the majority of the work done at racing speeds will be to battle air resistance. This means that drafting has a large effect: a rider in a peloton (a large cluster of cyclists) can use over 30% less energy to move at the same speed as a cyclist riding alone. Drafting can be both co-operative and competitive: a small group of cyclists can work together to maintain a high speed in a paceline, rotating the lead position (who must work hardest) between them; alternatively, a lone rider can try to sit on the wheel of a competitor, allowing them do the harder work and conserving energy for later. To try and get ahead of a peloton is called a break or a breakaway, and is difficult for the lone rider. This makes teamwork a very important part of cycling.

Drafting also has an effect on swimming, because the main work is done against the drag from the water. Because of the much lower speeds involved, the slipstream of each swimmer is more spread out. This means that to draft in swimming, one can be adjacent and slightly back from the swimmer in front, instead of directly behind as in cycling. In swimming events without lanes, such as the triathlon, competitors frequently form groups and lines just like pelotons and pacelines.

If you have access to Youtube, you can try to observe the effects of drafting in the following videos from the 2008 Beijing Olympics: Mens Triathlon and Women's Triathlon.

What effects did this phenomenon have on these results? In some triathlon events, drafting is forbidden in the cycling segment. How do you think the results would have been different if this rule had been used? Which version, if either, do you think is more fair? (If you're interested in cycling, you might like to think about the difference between a road race and an individual time trial).

Can you find some noteworthy individuals or teams, and describe their story based on their data? Look for examples of competition and teamwork, and successful/unsuccessful breakaways. You can try and confirm your stories with videos of the event.

2008 Men's Triathlon	Swimming	Cycling	Running
Fastest	00:18:00	00:57:48	00:30:46
Lower quartile	00:18:11	00:58:49	00:32:19
Median	00:18:21	00:58:56	00:33:23
Upper quartile	00:18:26	00:59:06	00:35:00
Slowest	00:18:56	00:59:19	00:38:39