The Olympic Triathlon (as opposed to the ordinary sort and definitely as opposed to the Ironman sort - despite the BBC's crass use of Black Sabbath's Iron Man as backing music, did they not realise how dumb that was?) is a swim followed by a mass bike ride with the occasional 'moment of glory' followed by a 10k run. In Beijing which, by all the previous test event indications had a tough bike and run section, we saw the winning group come from deep within the protective folds of the peloton to surge away on the run. That they caught the two athletes who were a minute ahead within a lap indicates just how much better rested they were. Arguably the only athlete to consistently put in effort through the race was Al Brownlee who at least had the courage to work at the front on the bike and for the first couple of laps of the run before his efforts exceeded his reserves of energy.

The reason for this draft-legal procession on the bike has always been justified on the basis that it makes things more television and spectator friendly. The fact that it has mutated the sport to produce winners who are good at hiding from doing the work on the swim and the bike appears to have been somewhat lost in the process. The fact that the first person across the line might be the smartest tactician isn't, somehow, in keeping with the 'fastest, highest, strongest' ideal.

The real question is: is there an alternative format? In my opinion there definitely is and I'd like to float this as a proposal to be chewed at by the masses.

Consider the drama that has been unfolding on two wheels elsewhere at the Olympics; both on the road and on the track. Here there are elements of tactics but there is also that purer measure of pure speed: and you certainly have to agree that it has made for some very exciting television over the past couple of weeks. Is it possible that we can learn something from this?

Given that, in it's purest form, a triathlon is a test of one person's ability to swim, bike and run faster than anyone else (not forgetting the essential transitions) let's just examine how that could work in reality. After all, they do cycle time trials with far bigger fields than the 55 men and 55 women we are allowed for triathlon.

Let's leave the whole qualification process completely alone. Countries send up to six athletes to a series of World Cup events and these earn them points which determine their position in the world rankings. Countries can earn up to a maximum of three places for each race on a basis of these rankings and the NGBs in those countries run their own selection races to determine their best-suited athletes. These may not even be the athletes who earned the points... ...it's not like that doesn't already happen!

So, come competition day, what happens at the Games?

The field race in a pure time trial format with the lowest ranked athletes going first up to the highest ranked who goes last. Athletes go at two minute intervals (this possibly needs to be tweaked a bit based on some better statistics but it's a pretty good starting point.) They swim, transition, bike, transition and run against the clock. The fastest overall wins.

And, just to add a little extra frisson of excitement, if an athlete gets caught by their pursuer - your 'two minute man' in cycling parlance - then it's game over. It's here that the time intervals will probably need to be tweaked a little depending on the men's and women's data that can be gathered from the two seasons of qualifying times but a quick look at the fastest to slowest time differentials indicates that somewhere near to this time will be about right.

What does the new competition give us that the current one doesn't?

Well, it should provide just as television-friendly a spectacle with constant time split updates and a constantly changing leaderboard. Being run on a looped course means that there will be a continual stream of athletes for the spectators to watch rather than a blur every few tens of minutes and then nothing at all. Nobody else is going to be using the venue so the extended time span - the event will run around four hours instead of two - shouldn't be an issue and for the broadcasters the availability of multi-channel TV means that it can still all be covered live with the top seeds getting premium channel coverage.

For the athletes it means that there's no hiding place, no safety in the pack, no 'team tactics' to get a good runner into position for an assault on the title. Triathlon isn't a team sport - if it was that would be a completely different story - and it shouldn't be possible to mutate the rules in the way that some countries choose to do. This time trial event would be a pure test of endurance and speed across all four disciplines. Push too hard, too early and you'll regret it but leave it too late and the risk of getting eliminated rears its head.

So, come on - have a go at the idea. See if you can think of anything better. Because, after the last three Games I'm not sure that triathlon is showing the world anything that special other than the last 5k of a 10k run by some fatigued athletes. And, as the toughest sport in the Games bar none, we really ought to be doing better than that.