Professional Triathletes Organisation logo
Search athlete or raceMagnifying glass
  • Logout
Racing
July 21, 2021

Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games Triathlons – All You Need To Know

The Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games triathlons will showcase the world’s best short-course racers on the grandest stage in sport – here’s everything you need to know.

For short course athletes, the Olympic Games Triathlon is the pinnacle of the sport. It represents the culmination of a four-year cycle – five in the case of this year’s Games – of battling to earn the chance to represent their country. From there, the hard work has just begun as these speed specialists go head-to-head in a pressure-cooker bid for glory and the opportunity to be honoured forever as an Olympic medallist.

Perhaps we’ll even get to see a new Olympic Champion who’ll follow in the footsteps of 2008 winner and PTO World #1 Jan Frodeno – taking short-course tri’s biggest accolade on the way to becoming the biggest force in long-course racing.


Triathlon Events At The Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games

As with each Olympics since triathlon’s introduction to the Games in 2000, we’ll have the men’s and women’s individual races to look forward to in Tokyo, both held over a 1500m swim, 40km bike and 10km run.

Triathlon fans will also have another opportunity to cheer on their country’s athletes thanks to Tokyo 2020’s inclusion of the first ever Olympic Mixed Relay event. This action-packed race follows the individual races and features four athletes per team. 

Racing in woman-man-woman-man order, each athlete will each complete a super-sprint race of 300m swim, 6.8km bike and 2km run before tagging in their country’s next competitor. Some countries have even picked their athletes specifically to target a medal in this event rather than going for individual glory.


When To Watch

The Tokyo 2021 Olympic Games Triathlons take place on three dates within the first week of the Olympics. The men and women race on consecutive days – 26 and 27 July – with a few days’ rest before the first-ever Olympic Mixed Relay triathlon on 31 July.

Men’s race – Monday 26 July 2021 06:30 Tokyo

Women’s race – Tuesday 27 July 2021 06:30 Tokyo

Mixed relay – Saturday 31 July 2021 at 07:30 Tokyo


Get Involved With The PTO’s Tri Fantasy Game

To celebrate the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games triathlons, we’ve expanded our Tri Fantasy Game to get you even more invested in the outcome! Purely in the name of fun, you can put on your triathlon pundit’s hat and make your predictions for the Games to earn bragging rights with your friends.

Start by selecting a team of your top five men and women. You’ve got an imaginary budget of ¥350 to play with and different athletes warrant higher values. Once your 10 athletes are in your squad, it’s time to sit back and see how they do! The winner of each individual race will get 1500 points with points decreasing by 7.5% for every position after that. The more points you end up with, the higher your ranking will be.

To play, head to the Fantasy game now!


Olympic Triathlon Race Venue

Odaiba Park will host all three triathlon events as well as the paratriathlon competitions. With spectacular views of the city’s futuristic skyline across the stunning Rainbow Bridge, this small island – south of central Tokyo, between Koto City and Shinagawa City – could provide the most spectacular setting for an Olympic triathlon yet.

While the location provides a unique viewpoint of Tokyo, all eyes will be set firmly on thermometers in the days leading up to the events. The races have been moved earlier to help mitigate fallout from the heat but temperatures are still set to soar to over 30°C while the humidity and even the chance of thunderstorms will be on the athletes’ minds.

 

Olympic Triathlon Courses

Individual Olympic Triathlons

In the individual races, a pontoon start just off Odaiba Beach will kick things off. Start positions will be decided by a blind selection process that could have a real bearing on the swim as athletes thrash it out for pole position by the first buoy. The swim will consist of two laps – one 1000m and one 500m for 1500m total – each heading out into Tokyo Bay towards Bird Island.

Once out the water, athletes will grab their bikes from T1 in Seaside Park before taking on an eight-lap, 40km bike course through the West Promenade gardens up Wangan-doro Avenue and back past transition. While the elevation change hardly peaks at double digits, it’s certainly a technical course with over 10 90-degree corners and a pair of dead turns. This could favour a small breakaway with the space to take the turns at pace.

After T2 back at Seaside Park, it’s a 10km footrace over four 2.5km laps. Each virtually flat lap circles the park before taking athletes back to the edge of Tokyo Bay for the finishing straight that will crown this year’s Olympic medallists.

Mixed Relay

The Mixed Relay Triathlon features a more compact version of the individual course. The first athletes will begin on the pontoon with a 300m swim in the bay. Next is a two-lap 6.8km bike course that crosses the bridge towards Ariake Tennis Park. It’s another technical bike route with corners aplenty and three u-turns. Finally, there’s a 1km run around Odaiba Beach before handing over to the next athlete, who will perform a spectacular running dive into the water.

 

Athletes

55 women and men from 38 nations have qualified for the Olympic triathlon races. Australia, Great Britain, Italy and the USA have all qualified the maximum of three women while Australia, Spain, France and Norway each have three men racing. Only Australia has hit the ranking criteria to take six athletes to the Games. Egypt, Morocco and Romania will all be competing in the Olympic triathlon for the first time.

In the Mixed Relay event, 18 nations will line up, each with two men and two women – selected from the same pool as the individual races. However, the final start list, including the order of each team’s athletes, won’t be confirmed until two hours before the race.

 

 

Individual Men’s Start List

 

Start Num# First Name Last Name YOB Country
1 Tayler Reid 1996 NZL
2 Hayden Wilde 1997 NZL
3 Justus Nieschlag 1992 GER
4 Jonas Schomburg 1994 GER
5 Léo Bergere 1996 FRA
6 Dorian Coninx 1994 FRA
7 Vincent Luis 1989 FRA
8 Dmitry Polyanskiy 1986 ROC
9 Igor Polyanskiy 1990 ROC
10 Jacob Birtwhistle 1995 AUS
11 Matthew Hauser 1998 AUS
12 Aaron Royle 1990 AUS
14 Stefan Zachäus 1990 LUX
15 Tyler Mislawchuk 1994 CAN
16 Matthew Sharpe 1991 CAN
17 Russell White 1992 IRL
18 Bence Bicsák 1995 HUN
19 Tamás Tóth 1989 HUN
20 Fernando Alarza 1991 ESP
21 Javier Gomez Noya 1983 ESP
22 Mario Mola 1990 ESP
23 Felix Duchampt 1989 ROU
24 Joao Pereira 1987 POR
25 Joao Silva 1989 POR
26 Jelle Geens 1993 BEL
27 Marten Van Riel 1992 BEL
28 Lukas Hollaus 1986 AUT
29 Alois Knabl 1992 AUT
30 Kenji Nener 1993 JPN
31 Makoto Odakura 1993 JPN
32 Mehdi Essadiq 1986 MAR
33 Rostislav Pevtsov 1987 AZE
34 Manoel Messias 1996 BRA
35 Gianluca Pozzatti 1993 ITA
36 Delian Stateff 1994 ITA
37 Ran Sagiv 1997 ISR
38 Shachar Sagiv 1994 ISR
39 Diego Moya 1998 CHI
40 Crisanto Grajales 1987 MEX
41 Irving Perez 1986 MEX
42 Mohamad Maso 1993 SYR
43 Kristian Blummenfelt 1994 NOR
44 Gustav Iden 1996 NOR
45 Casper Stornes 1997 NOR
46 Andrea Salvisberg 1989 SUI
47 Max Studer 1996 SUI
48 Marco Van Der Stel 1991 NED
49 Jorik Van Egdom 1995 NED
50 Richard Murray 1989 RSA
51 Henri Schoeman 1991 RSA
52 Kevin McDowell 1992 USA
53 Morgan Pearson 1993 USA
54 Jonathan Brownlee 1990 GBR
55 Alex Yee 1998 GBR
56 Oscar Coggins 1999 HKG

 


Individual Women’s Start List

 

Start Num# First Name Last Name YOB Country
1 Maya Kingma 1995 NED
2 Rachel Klamer 1990 NED
3 Vendula Frintova 1983 CZE
4 Petra Kurikova 1991 CZE
5 Cecilia Perez 1991 MEX
6 Claudia Rivas 1989 MEX
7 Simone Ackermann 1990 RSA
8 Gillian Sanders 1981 RSA
9 Anabel Knoll 1996 GER
10 Laura Lindemann 1996 GER
11 Taylor Knibb 1998 USA
12 Summer Rappaport 1991 USA
14 Katie Zaferes 1989 USA
15 Miriam Casillas García 1992 ESP
16 Anna Godoy Contreras 1992 ESP
17 Basmla Elsalamoney 1999 EGY
18 Joanna Brown 1992 CAN
19 Amelie Kretz 1993 CAN
20 Ashleigh Gentle 1991 AUS
21 Jaz Hedgeland 1995 AUS
22 Emma Jeffcoat 1994 AUS
23 Barbara Riveros 1987 CHI
24 Romina Biagioli 1989 ARG
25 Jolanda Annen 1992 SUI
26 Nicola Spirig 1982 SUI
27 Zsanett Bragmayer 1994 HUN
28 Zsófia Kovács 1988 HUN
29 Flora Duffy 1987 BER
30 Cassandre Beaugrand 1997 FRA
31 Leonie Periault 1994 FRA
32 Vicky Holland 1986 GBR
33 Jessica Learmonth 1988 GBR
34 Georgia Taylor-Brown 1994 GBR
35 Mengying Zhong 1990 CHN
36 Kaidi Kivioja 1993 EST
37 Julia Hauser 1994 AUT
38 Lisa Perterer 1991 AUT
39 Yuliya Yelistratova 1988 UKR
40 Carolyn Hayes 1988 IRL
41 Melanie Santos 1995 POR
42 Anastasia Gorbunova 1994 ROC
43 Alexandra Razarenova 1990 ROC
44 Elizabeth Bravo 1987 ECU
45 Luisa Baptista 1994 BRA
46 Vittoria Lopes 1996 BRA
47 Niina Kishimoto 1995 JPN
48 Yuko Takahashi 1991 JPN
49 Ainsley Thorpe 1998 NZL
50 Nicole Van Der Kaay 1996 NZL
51 Lotte Miller 1996 NOR
52 Valerie Barthelemy 1991 BEL
53 Claire Michel 1988 BEL
54 Alice Betto 1987 ITA
55 Angelica Olmo 1996 ITA
56 Verena Steinhauser 1994 ITA

 

 

Mixed Relay Country List

 

Start Num# Team Country
1 Team France FRA
2 Team Australia AUS
3 Team United States USA
4 Team Great Britain GBR
5 Team New Zealand NZL
6 Team Germany GER
7 Team Netherlands NED
8 Team Belgium BEL
9 Team Switzerland SUI
10 Team Italy ITA
11 Team Canada CAN
12 Team Japan JPN
14 Team Spain ESP
15 Team Hungary HUN
16 Team Mexico MEX
17 Team South Africa RSA
18 Team Russian Olympic Committee ROC
19 Team Austria AUT

 

How To Watch

The Tokyo 2020 Olympic triathlons will be broadcast all around the world. Here’s a lowdown of all the global carriers so you can make sure you don’t miss a moment of the action.

ARGENTINA: TYC Sports

AUSTRALIA: Seven Network

AUSTRIA: ORF

BELGIUM: VRT & RTBF

BRASIL: Grupo Globo & BandSports

CANADA: CBC/Radio-Canada; Sportsnet; TSN & TLN

CHILE: TVN

CHINA: CCTV & MIGU

CZECH REPUBLIC: ČT

ECUADOR: RTS

ESTONIA: Postimees Group

ALL EUROPE: Discovery, Inc – Eurosport

FRANCE: France Télévisions & Eurosport

GERMANY: ARD & ZDF

HUNGARY: MTVA

HONG KONG: I-CABLE; PCCW & TVB

IRELAND: RTÉ

ITALY: RAI

JAPAN: Japan Consortium

LUXEMBURG: RTL

MEXICO: Televisa; TV Azteca & Imagen Televisión

NETHERLANDS: NOS

PORTUGAL: RTP

ROMANIA: TVR

SLOVENIA: RTV

SPAIN: RTVE & EUROSPORT

SOUTH AFRICA: SABC & SuperSport

SWITZERLAND: SRG & SSR

UK: BBC & Eurosport

USA: NBCUNIVERSAL