Your Complete Olympics Triathlon Preview

From Paris.

Hello from France. I landed Saturday morning and watched the time trial from the corner outside my Airbnb (in the rain, with all the crashes). Crowds were sparse to start and sparse farther from the start/finish (we were about 6km from the finish), but fleshed out as riders came by and around the main plaza. And the cheers were nutty loud (!) for any French riders.

In general, I haven’t seen massive crowds, yet. Perhaps it’s partially because so many streets are closed to cars (or were closed but haven’t re-opened for some reason or close at random) or they’re limited to which cars can get through or they’re open again but it has a deterring effect. All of which leads to less traffic, which makes things actually feel pretty un-busy; a lot of shops in the neighborhood where we’re staying (about 5km from the triathlon start/finish) are closed either for the summer holidays or to avoid the Olympics. Unclear. I’d assume it’s going to get crazier and I’d assume the crowds congregate around key spots — but, overall, it’s felt less insane than Paris has felt some of the other non-Olympic times I’ve visited. So far.

My guess is the triathlon, where the French athletes are favorites and where people can just stake out a spot on the course, is going to be packed. It’s a race designed to be the marquee event of the Games.

Your preview of the tri

Men’s race: Tuesday, 8 a.m. Paris time/2 a.m. ET/11 p.m. PT (Monday evening)
Women’s race: Wednesday, 8 a.m. Paris time/2 a.m. ET/11 p.m. PT (Tuesday evening)

Mixed relay: Monday, Aug. 5 — same time (more TK)

How to watch

In the U.S. your best bet is Peacock; technically right now it says it’ll also air on USA on TV but.

The course

I don’t know if a ton of people have realized this (I only did a few days ago when it was pointed out to me), but the course has changed a tiny bit. The out-and-back on the Champs-Elysee on the run was moved to an out-and-back on the street along the water before the bridge, which eliminates some of the cobbles and now makes a U-turn a few hundred meters before the finish.

Updated map.

As discussed before: The course is primarily designed for broadcast and for iconic photo shots — and for French crowds to cheer what should be a marquee event for French athletes.

SWIM: Two laps (one longer, one shorter) with a fast current on the way out and swimming against it on the way back. Not messing up swim positioning will be absolutely key to making the best bike groups.

BIKE: Not a super exciting course, with seven relatively flat laps — and the general consensus is that there isn’t going to be much breaking away. But, I do think there are a few spots where it’s a little more technical and there isn’t as long of an open straightaway, so some athletes may try to make their moves there.

(Attempted breakaways didn’t super work in the Test Event, but people are primarily aiming for qualification/top 8 in the Test Event just to secure their spot, whereas the dynamics at the Olympics are notably different.)

RUN: All money is on this being a runner’s race. As in: It’ll likely be a big group out of T2 — or, in the women’s race, potentially a very small breakaway that the fastest runners are hoping to run down. If you can make the front group out of the swim; if you can’t stay in the front group without crashing to T2; then it’ll be a fast flat 10K.

The water quality

Lord. I’m going to go ahead and say what I’ve said before, what all the athletes largely believe: They’re going to swim.

They swam in Tokyo after similar hand-wringing. They swam in Rio. They’ve swum in worse water on the WTCS series. They’re going to swim in Paris.

That being said: Yes, thousands of houses and hundreds of riverboats in Paris literally had to be connected to the sanitation network at the start of this project because their wastewater was going straight into the river. (True story.) Yes, underground rainwater collection basins had to be built, because the rain water system and the sewer system are one joint system and so every time it rained it used to overflow into the river. So yes, there are issues. And there are standards and e coli & bacteria levels that have to be met. And after the rain the past few days, those standards were not hit Saturday night/early Sunday morning.

It was raining solidly here through the day Friday evening and Saturday. And, as in all cities, that means some of the runoff and overflow makes its way into the river (or, in LA, the ocean). The swim familiarization was canceled today because bacteria levels were still high. Right now, my understanding is they’re supposed to hold another swim fam tomorrow; the water is reportedly tested at 4 a.m. each day though they didn’t share yesterday’s results publicly. It didn’t rain today and it’s not supposed to again until Wednesday evening — so I expect the levels to be declared fine (and really we have a better shot this Tuesday & Wednesday than the possible rescheduled Plan B days that would come after the rain Wednesday night). I also expect very few athletes to actually risk getting sick tomorrow by swimming in the river, even if swim fam is on.

Here is a picture I took today of the open water/marathon swimming grandstands. There were actually three official staff/security people in the water in wetsuits, too. Just fyi.

The contenders

WOMEN

Beth Potter & Cassandre Beaugrand are the obvious favorites. 1-2 at the Test Event last year, 1-2 at plenty of other races over the last season. Beth would have probably been the lean favorite, but Cassandre looked so smooth in Hamburg a couple of weeks ago.

If you were going to bet, you’d bet that a medium-sized group with the two of them in it stays together on the bike and it becomes a running race between them, Emma Lombardi and probably one or two of the Germans. And whoever else has a good run day.

But. There’s one recipe to stop that. And I’m sure Flora Duffy knows what that recipe is. It’s to try and get away with a smaller group. The big thing missing from last year’s Test Event was Flora and Georgia Taylor-Brown. You get them in a bike group with Maya Kingma and wildcard powerhouse Taylor Knibb and who knows: How big a gap do they need into T2?

Full women’s start list is here.

MEN

Even more so than the women’s race, the men’s race is expected to be one massive group. There’s just too many guys who can swim too close to the same speed and get out on the bike too close together. The biggest danger will simply be if there’s another massive crash like there was in Yokohama earlier in the season.

If I was any of the front contenders I’d be nervous about too many jumpy wheels around me, especially on a couple of the fast corners you hit at speed on cobbles. I might consider making a run to stay away just to avoid the danger. (You can also imagine this is where pontoon positions — which come via random draw; women’s aren’t out yet — are probably stressing a lot of them out, too.)

All predictions then are that it’s going to be a very very fast run. Maybe a sub-29 (?) 10K. And if it’s a very very fast run your bets have to be on Alex Yee barely outrunning Hayden Wilde. I know that’s who/what everyone is predicting and I know that’s what the smartest minds think. I also think any of the three Frenchmen (Leo Bergere, Pierre Le Corre, and Dorian Coninx assuming the wrist is healed) are capable of attaching themselves to those frontrunners and simply refusing to let it go. And that’s probably what they’ll do too — just try to gut out a win through sheer force of will in front of a wild French crowd.

And because it should be acknowledged, if it comes down to a run you don’t count of Morgan Pearson. Plus, as a general rule, you never ever count out Kristian Blummenfelt. Even though this doesn’t seem like his course or his race or his season. If the deciding factor is gonna be sheer force of will, then, well, you don’t count him out.

Full men’s start list is here.