Most of the big favourites will dive into the River Seine – water quality permitting – close together in the men’s individual triathlon race at the Olympic Games on Wednesday (1045 local time) following the pontoon draw.
The ‘draw’ took place at the pre-race briefing and actually involves the athletes – in Olympics ranking order – picking their preferred spot.
So first of the 55 to go was French medal hope Leo Bergere as number one in the rankings – and his slot, along with the next nine in the list, were kept hidden until all 10 had been revealed and the remaining athletes could then choose, again in order.
Of course the race should have taken place on Tuesday but those ongoing pollution issues in the Seine have forced a postponement of just over 24 hours.
Why does pontoon position matter?
The draw for position on the floating Alexandre III pontoon is arguably more important than ever at the Paris Olympics because of the strong currents.
The fact that both swim familiarisation sessions were cancelled means that the only experience the athletes have comes from the Paris Test Event last year, meaning learnings are limited. But the strength of the currents, particularly around the buoys, took many athletes by surprise last August.
The River Seine is France’s second longest river and, as our in-depth course guide explains, currents tend to be strongest in the centre of the river.
The 1.5km swim actually involves two laps – the first is 910m and the second 590m, both are anti-clockwise.
It means that it’s a relatively long swim of 440m to the first buoy, then 30m to the next one before the turn back to the pontoon.
Crucially the current is in the athletes’ favour on the way out so it’s all about combining the most direct route to the first buoy while also trying to benefit from the downstream effect.
How did the draw pan out?
Nine of the first ten men have opted to take up the middle-right region for the shortest line to the buoy and potentially the strongest current.
The three Frenchmen Dorian Coninx, Pierre Le Corre and Leo Bergere will line up side-by-side at numbers 22, 23 and 24, with defending champion Kristian Blummenfelt (NOR) at 21 and Miguel Hidalgo (BRA) either side of them.
Britain’s Alex Yee and New Zealand’s Hayden Wilde are the bookmakers’ two big favourites and they’ve gone for numbers 27 and 30 respectively, separated by Vasco Vilaca (POR) and Jelle Geens (BEL).
Diego Moya chose the far left of the pontoon in number 55 while Mitch Kolkman is far right on number 1 as the graphic below shows.
Going with the flow
And there was a strong level of agreement around the reasoning for the picks when the athletes spoke to World Triathlon afterwards.
“21 is in the centre of the first gap under the bridge, and it looks like the current is strongest, so I thought that’s where the other top guys would go, and that’s what I saw when I found the three French guys next to me,” said Blummenfelt.
Le Corre explained: “We didn’t talk, that’s funny! We didn’t try to be together but all had the same information and wanted to be straight to the first buoy so I think it’s a good direct line.”
“I had a little conversation and I just wanted to be slightly over the central area over the arch and slightly to the inside, hopefully it works out well”, said Yee who won the Paris Test Event last August.
The big question now is will the water quality be deemed good enough for the swim?
We’ll find out around 4am on Wednesday.
If the answer is ‘no’ then the race will be rescheduled for Friday when there will be a real chance that no one will be diving off the pontoon and we will instead have a duathlon…
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