World Triathlon

Triathlon made its official Olympic debut at Sydney 2000, where Simon Whitfield (CAN) and Brigitte McMahon (SUI) stamped their names in the history books as the sport’s first gold medallists. In Athens four years later, it was Hamish Carter (NZL) and Kate Allen’s (AUT) golden moment, before Emma Snowsill (AUS) and Jan Frodeno (GER) won the golds at Beijing 2008. At London 2012, it was Alistair Brownlee (GBR) who became Olympic champion in front of his home crowd along with Nicola Spirig (SUI), a feat he would repeat in Rio 2016 where Gwen Jorgensen (USA) was also crowned champion.

At Tokyo 2020, Flora Duffy made history by becoming Bermuda’s first ever Olympic gold medallist, while Kristian Blummenfelt of Norway won the men’s title. Tokyo also saw the first ever Olympic Mixed Team Relay event, with the Great Britain squad of Georgia Taylor-Brown, Alex Yee, Jonathan Brownlee and Jessica Learmonth winning gold.

Most recently, Paris 2024 saw three of the greatest Olympic moments to date. In the women’s race, Cassandre Beaugrand delivered the gold for France that the thousands of fans lining the streets so wanted to see, cementing legend status in the process. Then it was the turn of Alex Yee to take the biggest prize in the sport as he put in an incredible late move to pass Hayden Wilde with just 200m to go. Team Germany and Laura Lindemann delivered the late drama to win the second Olympic Mixed Relay title, coming out on top of a split-second sprint finish with USA and GB.

The official distance for Olympic triathlon is set at a 1.5km swim, 40km bike and 10km run - taken from existing events in each discipline already on the Olympic programme.

See the history of World Triathlon