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Knechtle B, Cuk I, Villiger E, Forte P, Thuany M, Andrade MS, Nikolaidis PT, Weiss K. Performance and pacing of professional IRONMAN triathletes: the fastest IRONMAN World Championship ever-IRONMAN Hawaii 2022. Sci Rep 2023; 13:15708. [PMID: 37735607 PMCID: PMC10514275 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-42800-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/17/2023] [Accepted: 09/14/2023] [Indexed: 09/23/2023] Open
Abstract
Pacing during cycling and running in an IRONMAN triathlon has been investigated in only one study with elite IRONMAN triathletes. We have, however, no knowledge of how professional triathletes pace during an IRONMAN World Championship. To investigate the split-by-split speed, pacing strategies and pacing variability in professional female and male IRONMAN World Championship participants in the fastest IRONMAN World Championship ever in IRONMAN Hawaii 2022. For both cycling and running, 25 specific split times were recorded in each discipline. The best 30 men and 30 women overall were chosen from the official IRONMAN website database for further analysis. They were divided into three performance groups: Top 10, 11-20th place, and 21st-30th place. Mean speed, individual linear regressions with the corresponding correlation coefficients, and coefficient of variation were calculated to assess split-by-split speed, pacing strategies, and pacing variability, respectively. In both men's and women's cycling and running segments, the top ten participants exhibited faster split times compared to the slower performance groups. Notably, no discernible differences existed between the 11-20th and 21st-30th place in men's cycling and women's running times. Conversely, in men's running and women's cycling segments, those in the 11-20th place displayed quicker times than those in the 21st-30th place. In the cycling segment across all groups, men demonstrated a more negative pacing pattern (indicating an increase in speed), whereas women exhibited more consistent pacing. In the running segment, the top 10 men and all women's groups showcased relatively similar slightly positive pacing profiles. However, men ranking 11-20th and 21st-30th displayed more pronounced positive pacing strategies, implying a more significant decline in speed over time. In terms of cycling, the variability in pacing remained relatively consistent across the three performance groups. Conversely, during the running segment, the top ten male triathletes and those in the 11-20th place displayed lower pacing variability than their counterparts in the 21st-30th position place and all women's groups. In summary, performance and pacing were examined in professional male and female IRONMAN World Championship participants during IRONMAN Hawaii 2022. Top performers showed faster cycling and running split times, with differences in pacing strategies between sexes. The pacing was more consistent in cycling, while running pacing varied more, particularly among male triathletes in different performance groups.
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Affiliation(s)
- Beat Knechtle
- Medbase St. Gallen Am Vadianplatz, Vadianstrasse 26, 9001, St. Gallen, Switzerland.
- Institute of Primary Care, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
| | - Ivan Cuk
- Faculty of Sport and Physical Education, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia
| | - Elias Villiger
- Klinik für Allgemeine Innere Medizin, Kantonsspital St. Gallen, St. Gallen, Switzerland
| | - Pedro Forte
- CI-ISCE, Higher Institute of Educational Sciences of the Douro, Penafiel, Portugal
- Department of Sports Sciences, Instituto Politécnico de Bragança, Bragança, Portugal
- Research Center in Sports, Health and Human Development, Covilhã, Portugal
| | | | | | | | - Katja Weiss
- Institute of Primary Care, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
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Pryor JL, Johnson EC, Yoder HA, Looney DP. Keeping Pace: A Practitioner-Focused Review of Pacing Strategies in Running. Strength Cond J 2020. [DOI: 10.1519/ssc.0000000000000505] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/30/2022]
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Sousa CV, Barbosa LP, Sales MM, Santos PA, Tiozzo E, Simões HG, Nikolaidis PT, Knechtle B. Cycling as the Best Sub-8-Hour Performance Predictor in Full Distance Triathlon. Sports (Basel) 2019; 7:E24. [PMID: 30669265 PMCID: PMC6359305 DOI: 10.3390/sports7010024] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/15/2018] [Revised: 01/15/2019] [Accepted: 01/16/2019] [Indexed: 01/06/2023] Open
Abstract
For any triathlon distance (short, Olympic, half-distance and full-distance), competitors spend more time cycling than swimming or running, but running has emerged as the discipline with the greatest influence on overall performance at the Olympic distance. However, there is a lack of evidence on which discipline has the greatest influence on performance in the overall full-distance triathlon (3.8 km swimming/180 km cycling/42.195 km running), especially for the fastest performing athletes of all time. The total race times of 51 fastest triathletes (sub-8-hour) were studied, while for the split times, a sample of 44 participants was considered. The discipline that seemed to better predict total race time was cycling (coefficient = 0.828; p < 0.001), followed by running (coefficient = 0.726; p < 0.001) and swimming (coefficient = 0.476; p < 0.001). Furthermore, cycling was the discipline with the highest performance improvement over the years, whereas running had a slightly decrease. In conclusion, cycling seems to be the discipline with greater influence in final result for the full-distance triathlon.
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Affiliation(s)
- Caio Victor Sousa
- Graduate Program in Physical Education, Catholic University of Brasília, Brasília 71966-700, DF, Brazil.
- Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, FL 33136, USA.
| | - Lucas Pinheiro Barbosa
- Graduate Program in Physical Education, Catholic University of Brasília, Brasília 71966-700, DF, Brazil.
| | - Marcelo Magalhães Sales
- Department of Physical Education, Goiás State University, Quirinopolis 75860-000, GO, Brazil.
| | - Patrick Anderson Santos
- Graduate Program in Physical Education, Catholic University of Brasília, Brasília 71966-700, DF, Brazil.
| | - Eduard Tiozzo
- Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, FL 33136, USA.
| | - Herbert Gustavo Simões
- Graduate Program in Physical Education, Catholic University of Brasília, Brasília 71966-700, DF, Brazil.
| | | | - Beat Knechtle
- Institute of Primary Care, University of Zurich, CH-8006 Zurich, Switzerland.
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