Triathlon
An earlier tri-sport event in 1902 featured running, cycling, and canoeing.[4] There are documented tri-sport events featuring running, swimming, & cycling (not necessarily in that order) in 1920, 1921, 1945, and the 1960s.[4] In 1920, the French newspaper "L´Auto" reported on a competition called "Les Trois Sports" with a 3 km run, 12 km bike, and a swim across the channel Marne. Those three parts were done without any break. Another event was held in 1921 in Marseilles with the order of events bike-run-swim. Among the users was American athlete Charles Sector.[5] There are also articles in French newspapers about a race in Marseille in 1927. There is a 1934 article about "Les Trois Sports" (the three sports) in the city of La Rochelle, a race with: (1) a channel crossing (c. 200 m), (2) a bike competition (10 km) around the harbor of La Rochelle and the parc Laleu, and (3) a run (1200 m) in the stadium Andre'-Barbeau.
The first modern swim/bike/run event to be called a 'triathlon' was held at Mission Bay, San Diego, California on September 25, 1974. The race was thought up and directed by Jack Johnstone and Don Shanahan, members of the San Diego Track Club, and was sponsored by the track club. 46 runners joined this. It was allegedly not inspired by the French events, even though a race the following year at Fiesta Island, California, is sometimes called 'the very first triathlon in America.' The first modern long-distance triathlon event was the Hawaiian Ironman Triathlon. It included a 2.4 mile (3.86 km; 77 lap) swim, a 112 mile (180.2 km) bike ride, and a 26.2 mile (42.195 km) run. It was conceived during the ceremony for the 1977 Oahu Perimeter Relay (a running race for 5-person teams).
Among the runners were a lot of representatives of both the Mid-Pacific Road Runners and the Waikiki Swim Club, whose members had long been discussing which athletes were in better shape: runners or swimmers. On this occasion, U.S. Navy Commander John Collins pointed out that a recent article in Sports Illustrated magazine had declared that Eddy Merckx, the great Belgian cyclist, had the highest recorded "maximum oxygen uptake" of any athlete ever measured, so perchance cyclists were in better shape than anyone. Collins and his wife, Judy, had taken part in the triathlons staged in 1974 and 1975 by the San Diego Track Club in and around Mission Bay, California, as well as the Optimist Sports Fiesta Triathlon in Coronado, California, in 1975.
Quite a few of the other military athletes in attendance were also familiar with the San Diego races, so they understood the concept when Collins suggested that the debate might be settled through a race combining the three existing long-distance competitions already on the island: the Waikiki Roughwater Swim (2.4 mi/3.862 km), the Around-Oahu Bike Race (115 miles (185 km); originally a two-day event) and the Honolulu Marathon (26.219 mi/42.195 km).
No one present had ever done the bike race so they did not realize it was a two-day, not one-day, event. Collins calculated that, by shaving 3 miles (5 km) off the course and riding counter-clockwise around the island, the bike leg could start at the finish of the Waikiki Rough Water and end at the Aloha Tower, the traditional start of the Honolulu Marathon. Prior to racing, each athlete inherited three sheets of paper listing some rules and a course description. Of the fifteen men to start off in the early morning on February 18, 1978, twelve finished the race and the world's first Ironman, Gordon Haller, finished it in 11 hours, 46 minutes, and 58 seconds.
A number of triathlon events over varying distances are held all over the globe. The standard "Olympic Distance" of 1.5/40/10 km (.93/24.8/6.2 miles)was developed by long time triathlon race director Jim Curl in the mid-1980s, after he and partner Carl Thomas successfully produced the U.S. Triathlon Series (USTS) between 1982 and 1997. The Hawaii Ironman Triathlon now serves as the Ironman world championship, but the entity that owns the race, the World Triathlon Corporation (WTC), hosts other triathlons all over the globe that are also known as Ironmans. Long-distance multi-sport events organized by groups other than the WTC may not officially be called "Ironman" or "Iron" races. Such triathlons can be described as Full distance triathlon or "Half distance", but the "Ironman" and "Iron" labels are the official property of the WTC.