Was triathlon better before?

If you are active on any message boards you will quite often read about that the sport of triathlon was better before. That the sport has changed from a tight knit group of friends to this new “thing”. But was triathlon better before?



First of all, any sport was better when you just found it either alone or with your friends and had great pleasure doing the racing and training. This is not unique to triathlon. But it has nothing to do with the sport, just how an individual appreciate the moment.

 

I did my first triathlon at the end of the 80s. I did it with the same group of people I did cross country skiing with. The sport was not new for us, we had been exposed to triathlon since a long distance race had been organized in our area since the mid 80s (Hof). We also had don multisport as part of cross country skiing training, swim-run, swim-run-rollerskiing, so the thought of multisport was not new. Was triathlon fun, yes. Was it hard, yes. Was the sport better than now? No.

 

These days the races are better organized, they are safer and you can even get equipment. A friend of mine did Hof triathlon (Ironman distance) without a wetsuit. 17 degree water and 3.8k swimming was cold. He started the bike with a feather jacket to warm up. These days you can get a good wet suit for $200.

 

Conclusion: every time you find something new and you are really enjoying it, it will soon be the good old times. You maybe had more fun, but the arena you did your sport in did not matter as much as you think.

What we should do is keep focusing on why we are doing the sport, the enjoyment of the challenge.