5 Triathlon Rules I Wish Would Change
“Smokey, this is not ‘Nam. This is bowling. There are rules.“ So says John Goodman’s character, Walter Sobchak, as Smokey commits the cardinal sin of going over the line while bowling in The Big Lebowski. Smokey doubles down, claiming innocence, and then we move to the ludicrousness of Walter, pulling a gun out, threatening a “world of pain,” before exclaiming:
“Has the whole world gone crazy? Am I the only one around here who gives a shit about the rules? Mark it zero!”
This is, pretty much, how I feel about triathlon rules most of the time. Words have meaning. If we’re going to have rules, follow them. This naturally erupted during this week’s controversy over Hayden Wilde’s running shoes at T100 French Riviera. To recap: Wilde wore the production version of ASICS MetaSpeed Ray, the newest member of the MetaSpeed family which claims to be the lightest super shoe on the market. It is under 40 millimeters of stack height and has a single carbon plate, making it compliant with World Athletics limits (and therefore legal for triathlon). Just one problem: the shoe was not technically legal for competition until September 11th, so it could “debut” at the World Athletics World Championships next week in Tokyo.
A forum thread erupted (and is still going), questioning Wilde’s decision making, why officials didn’t perform shoe checks beforehand to ensure compliance, and the validity of the rule itself. Wilde wound up issuing an apology on Instagram. And we’re still discussing it as of this morning.
All because a shoe, which to be clear, will be fully legal in three days, was worn “too early.” That’s just a bad rule. This should be simple: either it is compliant with the stack and plate limits or it’s not. If it is, wear it. If it’s not, don’t.
Given that we’ve had plenty of rules controversy in 2025, it’s my opinion that we clean these up. Here are four other triathlon rules that I’d make modifications to.
Enforce the Fairing Rules on Aerobars
Look. I’m not here to ban all of the forearm length aerobars. There’s an ergonomic reason for that to have developed. But to get to the point where we now have these floating around out here?
That’s about a clear as day violation of Rule 5.03(b), which reads, “Protective screens, fuselages, fairings, or any other devices or materials (including duct tape) added or blended into the structure with the intent to reduce (or having the effect of reducing) resistance to air penetration are prohibited.” (Emphasis added).
The modified ruleset should require that aerobars be just that: bars (plural). Require a minimum gap between the two of them, so we don’t have someone with a millimeter sized gap in the bar above and say, “look, it complies.” And while we’re at it, require that the forearm support must end at a certain distance prior to the grips / bar ends.
I am pro innovation. I am anti solutions that fly in the face of the spirit and intent of the rule. This is the latter.
More Limits on Hydration
Ah, yes. The great debate of 2025, that resulted in no fewer than 10 different articles about the modifications to the hydration rule set. If you haven’t relived that drama enough, here’s the Cliff’s Notes edition: World Triathlon initially came out with hydration rules; the German triathlon federation decided to get very draconian with the ruleset; IRONMAN and World Triathlon scrambled to get to where we are today. That includes certain measurements on where bottle positions can and should be and the infamous “30 x 30” box for rear hydration and storage.
There’s just a small problem with these rules: athletes are still finding creative solutions around them. A professional during a recent race was spotted moving an aero bottle from one position on their bike to another; that move technically would have turned the bike from legal to illegal under the current ruleset, had someone measured at the time.
The problem with the existing rules is that, well, measurement can really only occur during check-in or post-race; there’s no good way to ensure enforcement out on the course. So, let’s make officials jobs easy again: you get one bottle on the front. It can either be the vertical style bottle that was the rage 10-15 years ago, or a single horizontally mounted bottle that can’t cover arms; can’t be mounted on top or behind the stem, and can’t be moved to another position on board the bike once in motion.
The rear rules are thankfully, mostly, on point. Standardized maximum of two liters of fluid, max bottle size of one liter, and then just allow frames with their storage boxes. Done.
Reduce the Draft Zone to 8 Meters
Hear me out: the current sized draft zone and associated penalty (which, don’t worry, we’ll get to that next) is the worst of both worlds. Especially at large races, like this weekend’s IRONMAN World Championships, it requires a near-Herculean effort to start changing positions on the bike. Once you enter one athlete’s draft zone, you have to keep going until you get to the head of the line, as there’s no slotting in. It means unless you have the bike prowess of the elite riders in the sport, you’re going to sit at 12 meters (or thereabouts).
Because of that, officials, even with RaceRanger technology aiding them, are seemingly reticent to give someone a bike position foul. And then we have online chatter post-race about who rode where, whether a pack was fully riding at 12 meters each, etc. Rinse. Lather. Repeat. Same story for 15 years.
More often than not, the ask is for longer draft zones; 20 meters is often cited. Here’s the problem, though: it would make the racing worse, not better, to watch. For the most part, it just becomes a bike race and who the best individual time trialist could be. There’d be less passing; larger time gaps; and ultimately, less dramatic finishes. That’s not a product that sells to a broader audience.
An 8 meter draft zone, theoretically, solves some of these issues. First, it makes the packs themselves smaller, meaning if you need to pass, it should be a shorter effort to make it happen. It also means that, because the gaps are smaller, it’s much easier to determine whether you have a place that you can move into, or if you’ll need to go the whole way around. In theory, it should also mean more athletes getting onto runs closer together, making for more late-race theatrics and drama.
But that only works hand in hand with…
Increase the Penalty for Drafting
Look. No warnings. Throw the flag. Four minutes for 70.3/T100, eight minutes for a full. Make the penalty hurt. And use the tech at your fingertips: don’t rely on RaceRanger alone, but if you see those lights flashing, you know someone is at risk of a penalty. Keep an eye on them.
That makes tactics a bigger point of the race: do I dare ride that close to the athlete in front of me, and chance that large of a penalty? At most races, that length penalty will take you out of the running near entirely. Or do I ride more conservatively, knowing that I could be giving something up? Ultimately, I’m not interested in who the best athlete was. I’m interested in who the best racer was. And those may not be the same thing. Race savvy and gamesmanship should be just as important as how big of an engine you have.
The issue that you’re trying to solve with the 8m draft zone can be fixed without massively changing the dynamics of how pros train and how races unfold, by leveraging the technology we already have (especially at WCs)
Allow slotting in. If you have race ranger, you can determine to the millimeter if there’s a gap or not. Make it risk vs reward for the athlete passing. You can pass and slot in if you think there’s enough of a gap, but if the RR on the next guy in the line starts blinking, you have to pass them too. The reason we traditionally can’t slot in is because every athlete was in theory at 12m perfectly and that by slotting in you encroached on the draft zone of the next athlete in line. Now we know better and can design better rules around the technology.
Automate enforcement. A bit more controversial, but establish a threshold where athletes are penalized for yo yos or sitting at 10m so you don’t need the ref sitting on the wheel not calling the red blinking light. Roth showed that some athletes ride the edge more than others. Find an automated way to use the RR data we already have to assign a penalty on the run proportional to how blatant they behaved while on the bike.
I relate to your post, but I think the cervelo brake fairing (used in triathlon for well over a decade) would like to have a word with you …
It should also make it “easier” to hold wheels of those trying to break away…I don’t think there is a “perfect” draft distance, but if your going to claim “non draft”, I don’t think a *smaller zone is the answer.
Exactly - what 8m does is turn it more into a draft fest since there’s less incentive to try to get away. The magic number needs to be some combo of “incentive to break away” and “incentive to stay with the group” so that there are real strategic tradeoffs for each athlete depending on their own proportionate strengths/weaknesses.
I’ll also point out that the optimal range might be a function of course design. Nice might be fine with an 8m draft zone whereas in Kona a more appropriate number might be 15m. But having different numbers for different races under the same IM umbrella won’t really work.
Kill that with fire, too.
(Although thankfully disc brakes have largely seen that thing removed from memory.)
Fundamentally, “non-draft” has been a lip service of long course tri for a while.
I’d rather have more athletes arriving in T2 closer together than not. How that impacts tactics / race craft is kind of the point.
Right, but that cervelo P5 brake fairing has been allowed for well over a decade and no one in any triathlon regulatory bodies (to the best of my knowledge) has even batted an eye.
So, rule applications are highly selective.
So I am Magnus, travelling at 45km/h at 300watts.
In order to pass Laidlow at 12m, how many watts equate to the “near-Herculean effort” ?
It’s more like: I’m Magnus, and have come out of the water in 43rd place because I had a terrible swim. I now must pass a string of 30 guys at 12 meters spacing without otherwise slotting in (because that is a position foul as well). How many matches must I burn to get to the front of said field?
That’s the move that is typically called for position issues, rather than a pure “drafting” one.
OK, so now I have 30 guys to pass, very unlikely in one shot, but we can do it with that
They are all going at 45km/h. That 30 guys is 30x25s = 750s = 12.5minutes
How many watts do I need to do for 12.5 minutes ?
Sure. Whether they should have is another story (although it brought us to the Trek integrated brake, which was more clever, and then disc brake solutions that all seem far more reasonable).
Just the bar thing really rubs me the wrong way.
Just so we are talking rules, are you talking all race distances or just 70.3/IM. If you’re talking LC, there is no solution imo that gives you an “entertainment” product vs probably the most fairest rules you can have. No amount of rule changes is going to make a 4 or 8 hour product better.
Sure, I totally follow you.
But competitive rules cannot just be applied to things that “rub someone the wrong way”. They must be uniformly applied to all items that violate those rules.
But that does not happen.
Which greatly weakens all rules.
(a bit like the ‘rule of law’ in society)
I’m with you. The Magura brake probably shouldn’t have ever been legal.
I’d like to attempt to put the toothpaste back in the tube a little bit when it comes to bars.
Isn’t that the problem with draft legal distances? Everyone comes into transition together and it just becomes a question of who can run the fastest? (The answer is Yee)
I’d rather have dynamic where the fast cyclists come into transition 6-8 mins ahead of the fast runners and we’re all wondering if they’re going to catch them or not before they run out of road.
To do this means that anyone who can’t outrun the fast runners needs either enough incentive to leave the group, or that the incentive is so low that no one wants to pull the group along. (Though the second option requires a parcours that will actually break the group up)
Otherwise you might as well just hand Blu the next 5 WCs if its just a foot race