History of Triathlon

Triathlon is a sport that combines swimming, cycling and running competitions. Triathlon was born in the ‘70s, in San Diego (South California, USA), and later it started to gain popularity throughout the world. Nowadays, triathlon is considered the fastest growing sport. But how did it all begin?

Jack Johnstone, an American professional swimmer, who was looking for an activity that would keep him fit, generated the idea of combining 3 disciplines into one sport. He and his friend organized competitions with a total distance of 18.06 km: 460 m swimming, 8 km cycling and 9.6 km running. Soon this sport became popular in the US Navy. Triathlon was considered as military exercises. A few years later, on February 18, 1978, the first major triathlon race was organized in Hawaii, which was called Ironman. 15 people took part in this race. The winner was Gordon Haller, who covered all race distances in 11 hours and 46 minutes.

Ironman is a race which requires serious physical fitness. Usually, Ironman lasts about 9 hours and consists of the following distances: 3.9 km swimming, 180 km cycling and 42 km running.

In 1989, in France, the International Triathlon Union (ITU) was founded. The union decided that the official triathlon races will be made of the following distances: 1.5 km swimming, 40 km cycling and 10 km running.

Triathlon became an Olympic sport in 2000, during the Olympics in Sydney, Australia.

Each year, the ITU organizes two large-scale triathlon races: the World Championship and the World Cup. The races have a start, a finish and transit zones. Depending on the type of race, the start and the finish may be set in different zones.

In the Republic of Moldova annual triathlon races are conducted, which are called Triathlon Triumph. This year, the championship will be held on July 14. Within the championship, Kids Triumph race will be held. In order to participate in the championship, you must register and pay the entry fee. The registration is open and may be completed on the official website of the sporting event triumph.md.

The Triathlon Triumph open-air race is organized by the Triathlon Federation of the Republic of Moldova with the support of the public sports organization Sporter and the most popular free ads board 999.md.