Indoor Triathlon and Olympic Triathlon (II)

The first indoor triathlons were held in stadiums and velodromes in Europe and Asia in the late 1980s as showcase events for the top professionals where a temporary pool would be built in the center and the bike and run would be around the track. These were invite only spectator events with qualifying heats and a final race for professional triathletes and were not open to the general public. Unlike the current format of indoor triathlons, these races did not have a short break between events so that transitions were an important element of the race. Borrowing from that concept, the first editions of the current version of the indoor triathlon were staged in the early 1990s in Ontario, Canada.

There a group of 4 triathletes friends created an indoor series based out of the 4 different universities they attended (University of Western Ontario, Mac Master University, Queens University and Trent University). The races consisted of a 15 minute indoor pool swim followed by a 5 minute break to get from pool to bikes followed by a 15 minute bike on a stationary bike followed by a 5 minute break to get from bikes to the track followed by a 15 minute run on an indoor track. The events were held with participants going in waves over the course of a morning. Participants were scored based on point scale where you could achieve up to 1000 points in each sport based on far you went in the 15 minutes. In contrast to the original professionally focused indoor races, the purpose of this series was to create a low cost, fun, safe and un-stressful way to initiate newcomers to the sport of triathlon. These races sold out quickly, and the series expanded to other universities and the Ontario Inter University Triathlon Association (OITA) was born to oversee it.

As triathlon's popularity grew in the 90s other indoor triathlon races began appearing across North American and the world using a similar format to the OITA races. Olympic Triathlon Tickets are easily available at Sport Ticket Exchange. Sport Ticket Exchange is a single point which offers you the Olympic Triathlon Tickets and all other Olympic Tickets at very cheap rates.