This week the organizer of the 2024 Long Distance World Championships in Townsville, Australia released the course details for all the races at the multisport event. The first look at the page for the aquabike race might give a slightly misleading impression though.

But before the good swimmers get a bit too excited: No, the bike leg is not only 30 km. And no, the picture with a bunch of cyclists does not mean that the race will be draft legal.

As expected, the swim is a one lap 3 km swim in the Pacific alongside the coastline. The bike course might seem a bit familiar to those racing the European Championships in Menen. A quite technical part through Townsville with quite a few u-turns, countless corners and also a short section over the motor racing track is followed by one long straight out of town on the coastal road and back. You´ll better be prepared for quite some winds in that section. There is only one little hill on the 39 km lap which has to be passed in both directions. Otherwise the course is completely flat.

After three laps aquabike athletes go straight to pass the aquabike finish while triathletes have to take one more u-turn to get to T2. Behind the aquabike finish there will be an aquabike specific transition zone where you can take your time to rack your bike, put on your running shoes and run or walk about 100 metres to the finish line to get your full finish line experience. So far on the paper it really looks like a neat solution for the aquabike finish.