Power ranking every single sport at the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics
By Nick Villano
7. Triathlon
Running. Swimming. Biking. It’s every type of singular race that exists within the ecosystem of the Olympics. The triathlon is the ultimate test of endurance. At Paris, it will be a 1500m swim, a 40km cycle and a 10km run. Honestly, this could get an athlete almost to Disneyland Paris and back to the venue.
Because of the pure length and endurance involved, the triathlon is one and done. There are no heats. No redos. There is no recourse if a mistake is made. And despite the length of these races, it can come down to seconds. In Tokyo, the difference between first, second, and third was 20 seconds in total. We’re talking about a race that takes an hour and 45 minutes. It comes down to less than 10 seconds between gold and silver.
At the last Olympics, they added a mixed triathlon, which included teams of two men and two women in a shorter version of the race. It was an interesting variation of the rules, and they are doing it again in Paris.
There is no other event that takes as much effort. This is the only distance event that will make it this high on the list. Sure, we’re not thrilled about the close-to-two-hour runtime. Thanks to it’s breakdown into events, it tends to be thrilling for a good portion of the race. Then that ending, it’s crazy.