Dear World Triathlon Officials,

The 2022 edition of the World Triathlon competition rules brought some significant changes for aquabike races. The probably most important one is regarding the finish of the race:

The World Championships Aquabike race in Samorin was the first race where this rule was applied. While in previous European and World Championship races the race finished before Transition Area 2, aquabike athletes had to run 800 metres to the finishline in Samorin.

This lead to quite some changes in the overall results of the race. In the following table you can see the position of the first 6 athletes at the end of the bike course, compared to their position at the finishline:

Athlete	Position after Bike	Position Finish
Daniel Klosa	2	1
Jonas  Hafemann	1	2
Kurt Holt	3	3
Christian Dürr	6	4
Arthur Winter	5	5
Blair Saunders	4	6

I am aware that those athletes who switched positions are all in different age groups and that there are no official overall results at international Aquabike Championship races (for whatever reason). But aquabikers are just as competitive as other athletes and of course also pay attention to the overall results – although they are not official.

Isn´t it paradox for a Swim & Bike competition to be decided in a final run?

But there is a more important issue than that.

Many aquabike athletes chose this multisport discipline because they are not able to run anymore due to an injury.

800 metres is certainly not a long distance to run for a healthy athlete. But for an athlete who suffers from a serious knee or hip injury this can be quite a challenge and is certainly not in the sense of the inventor of this sport.

 

European Championship in Targu Mures in 2019 – the lonesome winner

There are certainly advantages with this setup – especially for the athletes. Most of all a proper finishline experience. My very first aquabike race was the European Championship race in Targu Mures in 2019. The finish there basically happened in camera. The only person at T2 entry was a race official. Nobody else noticed that somebody just finished a race and became European Champion. It wasn´t me to become European Champion, but it still felt a bit awkward to finish a European Championship race like that. But there are proper solutions to this.

 

European Championship in Walchsee and World Championship Almere in 2021 – the perfect solution!

In Walchsee (European Championships 2021) aquabikers finished their race on the bike but could walk or run to the finishline from T2 to have a proper finishline experience.

In Almere (World Championships 2021) there even was an aquabike dedicated finishline where aquabikers could walk through with their bikes.

 

Short runs at local races

To have the finish at the triathlon finishline is certainly fine for many local races because the way from the transition zone to the finishline is often pretty short. However, even this short run is not in favour of seriously injured athletes. The run through T1 is often quite enough of a challenge already fort those aquabike athletes.

Fortunately many local race organizers choose to place the finish of the aquabike race at the entry of T2. So those athletes who have issues with running even a rather short distance can choose those events. But this brings us to the next issue about this rule in the World Triathlon competition rules.

 

Rules adopted by national federations

Some national federations adopted this rule and included it in their national competition rules. So did for example British Triathlon or Triathlon Austria.

Which means that in these countries race organizers who set the T2 entry as finishline of the aquabike competition are violating the national competition rules of their federations.

Many race organizers especially in the UK still do so. Probably because most of them are not aware of the change of regulations. And fortunately, British Triathlon seems not to care about it. But it´s obvious that this is certainly not an ideal constellation. And probably some race organizers will either adopt the new rules sooner or later, or will maybe not offer an aquabike option anymore at races, where this is not possible without violating the rules wich is for example the case at point to point triathlons or other triathlons where the finish is not close enough to T2.

 

I am an aquabike athlete myself and founder of aquabike.world website & community. I am constantly interchanging thoughts and ideas with other athletes and race organizers.

The reason for this open letter is not that I am individually affected by this issue. I was not competing in Samorin and I am not one of the athletes who cannot run because of medical issues – I just don´t enjoy it as much as swimming and cycling.

But due to my involvement in the community I know that this is a big issue for many athletes.

So I´m asking you to rethink and revise this regulation in the interest of the athletes.

 

Thanks a lot for your attention.

With best regards,
Markus Burkert
www.aquabike.world