An analysis of transition time in the World Championship of Triathlon – Hamburg 2007 – Determination of the Lost Time T2

Triathlon is a combined endurance sport, which includes back-to-back swimming, cycling and running, always in that order and with total time measurements including the transition between events. The speed and precision in the execution of the transitions is a major factor in performance described in the triathlon (Cejuela et al., 2007). In order to study the performance in triathlon we have taken into account that one of the most difficult (strategically and physically) part of a triathlon is the transition from cycling to running. The goal of the current study was to analyze the transition time during an international, top-level competitive event (World Championship of Triathlon: Hamburg 2007), in particular de Lost Time T2 and its correlation with the final race score. The results showed that the percentages of total time for each stage of the race and the corresponding transition times from stage to stage were: 16.5% for the swim, 0.64% for the swim-bike transition (T1), 52.1% for the bike-ride with a 0.33% of the time for the bike-run transition (T2) and finally 30.2% for the run. The correlation coefficients between stages and transitions relative durations, and the final classification scores were r = 0.364 for the swimming stage, r = 0.234 for T1, r = 0.693 for the bike-ride, r = 0.284 for T2 and r = 0.738 for the Lost Time T2. The run showed the strongest relationship with the final classification score (r = 0.810). In conclusion, determining the Lost Time T2 may contribute significant information about the performance in high-level competitive Olympic Triathlon. The run seems to be a strongly related to performance success. Our results confirm prior suggestions made in the literature (e.g., Slelvert & Rowlands, 1996; Hue et al., 1998; Bentley et al., 2007) PARA CONOCER MÁS ACERCA DE NUESTRO TRABAJO Y LOS SERVICIOS QUE BRINDAMOS PUEDEN DIRIGIRSE A: www.allinyourmind.es