Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Sports Spectacular by Bathroom Readers’ Institute

Author:Bathroom Readers’ Institute [Bathroom Readers’ Institute]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Portable Press

One of pitcher Nolan Ryan’s jockstraps sold at auction for $25,000.

TRIATHLON Q&A

Lots of people like to swim, bike, and run. But some people like to do all three on the same day…while bumping elbows with hundreds of other athletes. Think you’re up for it? Here are a few facts to get you started.

WHAT’S A TRIATHLON?

It’s an event in which competitors swim, ride a bicycle, and run, one sport right after the other, usually for long distances. The two most popular types are the full-length (or “Ironman”) version, which consists of a 2.4-mile swim followed by a 112-mile bike ride and a 26.2-mile marathon run; and the Olympic length, featuring a swim of .9 miles (1,500 meters), a bike ride of 25 miles (40 kilometers), and a run of 6.2 miles (10 kilometers). There are also half-tri’s; kids’ tri’s; and informal, local versions that vary in length.

WHO THOUGHT THIS UP—AND WHY?

• Three-part races are nothing new. In the 1920s, a French race known as Les Trois Sports (The Three Sports) had competitors running 3 kilometers, cycling for 12, and then swimming across the Marne River. But the event that’s marked as the first modern triathlon took place in San Diego on September 25, 1974, when a few dozen members of the San Diego Track Club inaugurated what became known as the Mission Bay Triathlon. It continues to this day; in 2009 about 1,650 athletes participated.

• The full-length triathlon got its start in 1978, the brainchild of several athletes in Hawaii who’d had a longstanding debate over whether runners or swimmers were more fit. Before the race, one of the competitors joked that whoever won it would be known as the “Ironman”—which became the nickname for its standardized (very long) length. In that first race, 15 men entered. Now more than 80,000 men and women compete each year in local Ironman triathlons to qualify for the World Championship race, still held annually in Hawaii.

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