The length of the Men’s Olympic Triathlon is the same as the length of the women’s Olympic triathlon, and is referred to as the “Olympic Distance”. This distances are 1.5k Swim, 40k Bike and a 10k run. In this year’s race the dominant forces without a doubt are the Brownlee brothers of Yorkshire, Great Britain.
How long will their race be?
in last years 2011 World Champinoship, the winning time, set by Allistair Brownlee was 1:48:07. Alistar’s splits were as follows:
| Name | Total | Swim | T1 | Bike | T2 | Run |
| Brownlee, A | 01:48:07 | 00:17:11 | 00:00:35 | 00:59:59 | 00:00:34 | 00:29:49 |
The fastest recreational athletes finish an Olympic distance event in about 2 hour, with the majority finishing between 2:20 & 2:40 depending on experience and of course, overall speed.
If you are considering how long it might take you to finish an Olympic Distance triathlon, you’ll need to determine what your average speeds are for each leg and make a projection by adding the paces together and allowing an additional 5-10% on your run to account for the fatigue developed during the bike portion of the race.
You can learn the results of any ITU race by looking up your favorite triathlete on triathlon.com. That way you can always know how high to set your heights!
