Ironman Triathlon and the Drafting Debate
It’s almost time for Ironman Florida again, so it must be time to bring up that age-old issue of drafting on the bike. Whether you are FOP, MOP or BOP, if you’ve raced an Ironman you have probably seen drafting…or at least you think you have. Some folks blame the marshals / race organizers, others hold the individual athletes accountable…not me. I think it’s actually the nature of our sport that’s the real culprit, but more on that later.
Drafting Defined
There are lots of technical descriptions of, and rules about, drafting during the cycling leg of a triathlon. Four basic rules are:
* You have to stay about 7 meters back from the front wheel of the rider in front of you.
* If someone passes you (there front wheel goes past your front wheel), you must yield and let that person go…you should also drop the full 7m behind their front wheel before passing again.
* The person passing has 20 seconds once they have entered the 7m zone to make the pass, otherwise they must drop back.
* The zone has some width considerations as well; i.e. you can’t ride right behind but just off to the left of someone, as that’s still drafting.
Faux Drafting is rampant. Having raced in 14 IMs and officiated as well, I have seen both real and faux drafting. Many times the drafting you think you are seeing by looking up the road isn’t actually drafting. Folks may look stacked up from your perspective, but in reality they are spread out. Sometimes folks are just moving around just enough to avoid any technical definition of drafting.
Real Drafting does in fact happen, but not as much as you think. I call this “real” since the person committing the offense is working to stay on someone’s wheel. This is exactly what marshals are looking for…someone who is speeding up/slowing down/turning left or right to stay behind someone’s wheel. This is not only illegal in a triathlon, it’s downright dangerous.
With the outline behind us, let me get back to my original proposition — the true reason for the continued issue of drafting in ironman triathlon’s is the fact that our sport has a dual identity. One one hand there are people out there competing for a placing, for a kona slot, for money; on the other hand there are people out there just “doing” the race to get it done. All of these people compete under the same rules, which makes it hard to monitor, especially when due to age / gender / ability considerations the competitors can be spread out from an 8.5hour finish time to a 15hour finish time. It’s easier for the race organizers to make a half-hearted attempt than to truly address the issue (or legalize it — but that’s a concept for another article)!
Proposed Solution
If you want to be eligible for a kona slot or prize money, then you have to (A) state that somewhere on your application/at registration and then (B) you have to put a sticker on the back / left side of your helmet (like hot pink) and on the left rear triangle of your frame — making you visible to the marshals.
This way the marshals are only really watching the folks out there who are “racing” and can leave the other folks to enjoy doing the race. This could eliminate a lot of those crazy penalties, the one for the guy finishing at 13:45 who, 1 mile from the finish hands his Fuelbelt to his family and is forced to serve a penalty there for 4 minutes.
Of course I’d love to say that race organizers should spend more money to have a team of professionals who followed the race, just like the reps for each of the sponsors do who sell stuff in the expo. But the organizers have shown over the last 4-5 years of explosive growth of our sport that they really aren’t willing to invest in such an item. I think my proposal is potentially cost-effective and will help to address the drafting issue for the folks whose results are affected…and who care.
Fire away with your comments… 
~ Patrick
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