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Cycling as the Best Sub-8-Hour Performance Predictor in Full Distance Triathlon


Sousa, Caio Victor; Barbosa, Lucas Pinheiro; Sales, Marcelo Magalhães; Santos, Patrick Anderson; Tiozzo, Eduard; Simões, Herbert Gustavo; Nikolaidis, Pantelis Theodoros; Knechtle, Beat (2019). Cycling as the Best Sub-8-Hour Performance Predictor in Full Distance Triathlon. Sports, 7(1):24.

Abstract

For any triathlon distance (short, Olympic, half-distance and full-distance), competitors spend more time cycling than swimming or running, but running has emerged as the discipline with the greatest influence on overall performance at the Olympic distance. However, there is a lack of evidence on which discipline has the greatest influence on performance in the overall full-distance triathlon (3.8 km swimming/180 km cycling/42.195 km running), especially for the fastest performing athletes of all time. The total race times of 51 fastest triathletes (sub-8-hour) were studied, while for the split times, a sample of 44 participants was considered. The discipline that seemed to better predict total race time was cycling (coefficient = 0.828; < 0.001), followed by running (coefficient = 0.726; < 0.001) and swimming (coefficient = 0.476; < 0.001). Furthermore, cycling was the discipline with the highest performance improvement over the years, whereas running had a slightly decrease. In conclusion, cycling seems to be the discipline with greater influence in final result for the full-distance triathlon.

Abstract

For any triathlon distance (short, Olympic, half-distance and full-distance), competitors spend more time cycling than swimming or running, but running has emerged as the discipline with the greatest influence on overall performance at the Olympic distance. However, there is a lack of evidence on which discipline has the greatest influence on performance in the overall full-distance triathlon (3.8 km swimming/180 km cycling/42.195 km running), especially for the fastest performing athletes of all time. The total race times of 51 fastest triathletes (sub-8-hour) were studied, while for the split times, a sample of 44 participants was considered. The discipline that seemed to better predict total race time was cycling (coefficient = 0.828; < 0.001), followed by running (coefficient = 0.726; < 0.001) and swimming (coefficient = 0.476; < 0.001). Furthermore, cycling was the discipline with the highest performance improvement over the years, whereas running had a slightly decrease. In conclusion, cycling seems to be the discipline with greater influence in final result for the full-distance triathlon.

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Additional indexing

Item Type:Journal Article, refereed, original work
Communities & Collections:04 Faculty of Medicine > University Hospital Zurich > Institute of General Practice
Dewey Decimal Classification:610 Medicine & health
Language:English
Date:18 January 2019
Deposited On:12 Jun 2019 14:53
Last Modified:22 Jan 2023 09:20
Publisher:MDPI Publishing
ISSN:2075-4663
OA Status:Gold
Free access at:PubMed ID. An embargo period may apply.
Publisher DOI:https://doi.org/10.3390/sports7010024
PubMed ID:30669265
  • Content: Published Version
  • Licence: Creative Commons: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)