The effect that the Brownlee brothers have had on British Triathlon cannot be underestimated as they have dominated the sport and put triathlon on the map for many people in the country.
Alistair and Jonathon Brownlee are at the front of world Triathlon, with Jonny being on the podium for 42 races consecutively between July 2010 and May 2014, while Alistair is the current Olympic, Commonwealth European and former World Champion.
They have said that their success is due to having each other, as they push each other to be better and to train even on Christmas day.
For those who do not know what triathlon is, it involves the competitors completing a swim, bike and finally a run over a set distance. There are extreme versions of triathlons that are known as Ironman events, where the distances of the disciplines are increased with the run being a marathon to finish.
British Triathlon have laid out a plan which clearly states which categories and age ranges are allowed to perform which triathlon distances, this is the non-elite format of the sport which is called Age-Group Competition.
This system allows the performers to compete for European and World titles against their own pre-defined age groups. All of the categories from children as young as 8 up to 80+ are separated by gender in those age groups, however when the performers reach the age of 20 the age groups just up 5 years.
The distances that the competitors will compete over change depending on the age of the performers. For novice athletes the distances they compete over are, 400m swim, 20km bike and 5km run afterward, the distances increase as the performers get older.
The Olympic distances that the elite athletes competing are a 1500m swim, 40km bike and the finale is a 10km run. Anything above those distances are considered Ironman events; starting at the half Ironman and leading up to the full Ironman.
Triathlon is a sport that requires stamina, due to the high demands and time spent while competing. This is why training methods such as continuous and interval training are regularly used by triathletes to develop their performance and abilities.
Triathlon is not a sport which can easily be done in PE setting, however if a school has a gym compete with cardiovascular machines, then the students could test themselves in a duathlon as this does not involve swimming and replaces this discipline with another run element to the activity.
