Olympic Triathlon Mixed Relay: What is it?

Years in the making, a coming together of the two best male and female athletes for their country, making its Olympic mark for the very first time, the Triathlon Mixed Relay.

This weekend’s event is bound to be a thriller at the Odaiba Bay venue where the individual races took place over the last few days. It’s another chance for athletes to win medals, some will be out looking for redemption, others to add to their tally. Teams of two men and two women will take to the start line again to race over a short course triathlon by completing a 300m swim, 6.8km bike and 2k run before handing over to their teammate to do it all again. Some have compared it to Super League Triathlon, unpredictable, viewer friendly and yet more good initiative from the ever evolving sport of triathlon.

There are however some absentees from the start line. The race will NOT feature both of this years Olympic Champions with Kristian Blummenfelt’s country of Norway failing to qualify in the final qualification race in Lisbon just a few weeks ago and Flora Duffy’s country of Bermuda simply not having enough depth within their country to be able to even attempt to qualify a team.

The teams to look out for this year will no doubt be 3X World champions France. Leader of the pack Vincent Luis will look to use his speed which he has shown so dominantly over the Super League distances to help his team to glory. Also to look out for will of course be Team Great Britain who have two medalists from the individual races in Alex Yee and Georgia Taylor-Brown. Team New Zeland are a young squad but with a lot of talent, Hayden Wilde’s podium in the men’s race should give confidence to the rest of his teamates. Finally Team USA no doubt could be a threat, Morgan Pearson will be back for redemption after a poor indivudual race and will be looking to run off some steam if he is put in the position to be able to do so by his team.

The dark horse for the race have to be Team Germany who have always been able to turn on the switch when the relay comes to Hamburg and have found themselves on the podium a few times.

Others taking to the start line are Team Belgium, Team Australia, Team Netherlands, Team Switzerland, Team Italy, Team Canada, Team Spain, Team Hungary, Team Mexico, Team Austria, Team Russian Olympic Committee and host country Team Japan,

You can view the full start list HERE