On 16 September 2000, short-course triathlon was beamed to a global audience. Set against a Sydney Opera House backdrop, the world's very best male and female triathletes showed the world what it meant to be an endurance athlete. By the end of the day, six athletes were presented with medals and an audience of millions was transfixed.
Since that groundbreaking day, five more iconic cities – Athens, Beijing, London, Rio and Tokyo – have watched on as 32 more Olympic medals have been awarded. We've seen epic crashes, penalties issued, bikes carried, photo finishes and stray boats! Lifelong dreams have been realised and obliterated within seconds of each other.
And that's just the Olympic action. In 2016, paratriathlon made its glorious debut on Copacabana Beach at the Paralympic Games; five years later the mixed relay event would take its spectacularly frenetic bow.
So how did we narrow all that action down to just 25 highlights?! Well, it wasn't easy, but someone had to do it…
25. Rising highest
Rio Olympic Games 2016
As Brit Simon Lessing in 2000 and Javier Gomez in 2008 will testify, the Olympic Games triathlons haven’t always been kind to the pre-race favourites. Yet Gwen Jorgensen rose above the doubts in 2016 to claim gold and enter multisport’s list of immortals.
With the Copacabana in Rio, Brazil, as the unrivalled backdrop, the American stayed near the front on the swim and bike legs, proving to her critics once and for all that she could handle herself on two wheels.
The 10km run became a straight shootout between the American and Switzerland’s reigning Olympic champion, Nicola Spirig. The two hadn’t faced one another since London 2012, and the mid-race sparring could be heard from the grandstand.
Yet Jorgensen refused to be broken by the wily, tough-as-teak Swiss, and broke away with a lap to go to finally scoop America’s first Olympic Games tri gold.
24. Tri joins the Olympic fold
Led by the formidable, irascible and divisive Geordie-turned-Canadian Les McDonald, tri’s route to Olympic Games inclusion was a rocky one. It led to the formation of the International Triathlon Union (ITU), and enough federation jostling, power struggles and political manoeuvrings to fill a Netflix series.
Most significantly and controversially, it saw the elite sport abandon its non-drafting cycling roots, a decision that caused the biggest rift in tri history and witnessed an exodus of athletes (including Brit superstar Spencer Smith) to Ironman.
But in September 1994, the news arrived that triathlon would become an official Olympic Games sport at Sydney 2000. Multisport would never be the same again.
23. History makers
Sydney Olympic Games 2000
Six years since tri was confirmed as an Olympic sport, the wait was finally over. At 10am on 16 September 2000, triathlon made its Olympic Games debut when 48 female triathletes dived into Sydney Harbour.
Two hours later, local hearts were broken when Switzerland’s Brigitte McMahon edged the Aussie favourite, Michellie Jones, to take tri’s first Olympic gold.
McMahon failed to podium at an elite race again and would later test positive for EPO in June 2005, whereas Jones confirmed her status as one of the all-time greats with victory at the Ironman World Championships in 2006.
22. Tri spirit
Athens Olympic Games 2004
Athletics will always have Derek Redmond accompanied by his dad to the finish line at Barcelona 1992. Triathlon’s version of this never-say-die attitude came at Athens 2004. In his debut Olympics, British triathlete (and future husband to Helen Jenkins) Marc Jenkins crashed on the hilly bike course and broke his wheel.
Rather than DNF, he ran 1.5km of the hilly bike leg in his cleats with his bike on his shoulders, eventually placing 45th as the final finisher home.
“It’s indicative of triathlon,” said race winner Hamish Carter on Jenkins’ determination. “Every athlete has worked so hard to be here and doesn’t want to let their country down.”
21. Tech trends
Due to rigid rulings on gear and the draft-legal format, the Olympic Games doesn’t offer the same amount of innovation as Ironman. But the evolution of tri tech is still in evidence from Sydney 2000 to Tokyo 2020, with shortened tri-bars used by many in Sydney; Hamish Carter rocking one of the last two-piece Olympic tri-suits to victory in Athens 2004; and the Brownlees’ experimentation with the bulbous aero helmets at London 2012. What will Paris 2024 bring?
20. The Vicky vs Non show
Rio Olympic Games 2016
Michelle Dillon’s sixth in 2004 and Helen Jenkins’ fifth in 2012 were both painfully close to securing Britain’s first female triathlon Olympic medals, but 2016 saw not one but two Brit stars vying for the bronze position.
The fact that they were housemates and best friends added to the emotion, but, with the finish line in view, Vicky Holland finally delivered Britain’s first female tri medal by out kicking Non Stanford for bronze in front of a raucous Copacabana backdrop.
19. From 27 to 1
Athens Olympic Games 2004
Four years after Brigitte McMahon’s surprise success in Sydney, Austria’s Australian-born Kate Allen again ripped up the form book in the women’s event in Athens, Greece. It wasn’t just the victory, but the manner of it that astounded spectators.
The 34-year-old passed 27 competitors on the final leg as she ran 3mins faster than the Aussie favourite, Loretta Harrop, to overtake her former compatriot with the finish line in sight. In doing so, Allen would become the oldest triathlon Olympic champ to date.
18. A dream realised
Rio Olympic Games 2016
New Zealand’s Andrea Hewitt was always a consistently strong presence on the ITU circuit, clocking 41 podiums and 11 race wins since winning the U23 ITU world title in 2005.
But heartbreak struck late in 2015, when Hewitt’s coach and fiancé, Laurent Vidal, another pillar of the racing scene, passed away during his sleep.
Yet Hewitt refused to let the tragedy of his death stop her – and his – dream of performing strongly in Rio. She swiftly returned to several ITU podiums before placing an emotional seventh in Rio.
17. World-class debut
Rio Paralympic Games 2016
Sixteen years after tri made its Olympics debut in Sydney came paratri’s Games bow in Rio, with 10 September 2016 forever a date etched into paratri history.
The first event was the men’s PT4, which saw Germany’s reigning world champ Martin Schulz storm into the lead on the bike leg and extend his advantage on the run to become the first-ever Paralympic paratri champion in front of a packed Copacabana grandstand.
16. The journey, not the destination
Rio Olympic Games 2016
We’re not sure if it was T.S. Eliot or Emerson (or Aerosmith) who inspired the Instagram cliché, but ‘it’s the journey, not the destination’ certainly applies to Mauritian athlete Fabienne St Louis ahead of Rio 2016.
Having raced at London 2012, St Louis was back prepping for Rio when she was diagnosed with a rare form of salivary gland cancer in December 2015.
She began treatment the following April, undergoing two surgeries to remove the tumour and another to remove further cancerous cells, and was left with face paralysis for three months leading up to Rio.
And yet, on 20 August 2016, St Louis stood alongside 54 other female athletes from 31 nations as the starting horn sounded in Brazil. Her DNF paling into insignificance when compared with the obstacles she faced making it to her second Olympics.
15. Domestique nature
Beijing Olympic Games 2008
Is triathlon a team or individual sport? Whatever your view, the Canadian men’s duo of Simon Whitfield and Colin Jenkins at Beijing 2008 revolutionised elite racing with a domestique approach that’s since been replicated by the British men’s team in 2012 and 2016. Over to Jenkins to explain the background.
“Simon won gold in Sydney and was a favourite for the 2004 Games. There was a breakaway during that race and Simon ended up in the chase pack [he would finish 11th]. Triathlon Canada didn’t want a repeat of that situation. Once the team was announced my run training took a backseat. I was actually hit by a car six weeks out from the Games, but it didn’t hurt my swimming or biking.”
The result saw Whitfield shepherded by Jenkins until the run leg, where Whitfield propelled himself to silver behind Jan Frodeno.
14. Statement showing
Beijing Olympic Games 2008
A 22-year-old Tim Don had a breakthrough performance at Sydney 2000 in finishing 10th, but eight years later it was the turn of a 20-year-old from Yorkshire to steal the British limelight ahead of more storied competitors.
The Ming Tomb Reservoir was the setting for Alistair Brownlee grabbing the race by the horns – which would become a familiar sight in the years that followed – with the Brit leading on the run leg with 7km to go before fading to 12th.
It was a foreshadowing for British tri’s greatest moment four years later, and the fact that he was far from satisfied with his result showed that here was a born champion.
“I’m actually gutted as I came here to win a medal. I just wanted to beat them all. Hopefully four more years of maturity will help me get those other 11 places.” How right he was.
13. Pressure release
Rio Paralympic Games 2016
As television or grandstand spectators, we only see the final chapter of the four-year Games journey, never the days of self-doubt. The Forest of Dean’s Andy Lewis was one such racer to feel the pressure of pulling on the national colours.
“I crumbled in the holding camp,” Lewis admits. “The pressure got to me. I went to Rio as British, European and world champion. Everybody seemed to believe in me, but I couldn’t see it myself.
"I’d quit a £30,000-a-year job to move to Loughborough, away from my wife and kids, to become a £12k-a-year funded triathlete. Then, when the horn went, I started swimming the wrong way.”
Lewis recovered his composure to take victory in the PT2 category. The six paratri categories reaped four medals for Team GB at paratri’s Paralympic debut, with Lauren Steadman, Alison Patrick and Melissa Reid adding two silvers and a bronze to Lewis’s gold.
12. The Ice Age cometh
Tokyo Olympic Games 2020
Several years ago, few would have placed money on a Norwegian athlete winning an Olympic triathlon medal, let alone gold. But then Kristian Blummenfelt – and his male teammates Gustav Iden and Caspar Stornes – came along and re-wrote the rule book.
Placing science at the centre of their strategy, the small team has packed a massive punch in the sport, winning every title going since Blummenfelt’s dominant performance in Japan. Paris is already in his crosshairs.
11. Carter the unstoppable machine
Athens Olympic Games 2004
Triathlon’s toughest-ever Olympic Games bike course. Relentless humidity and heat. A stacked field that featured reigning Olympic champ Simon Whitfield, Sven Riederer and Tim Don.
In the words of Aussie superstar Greg Bennett, who’d finish fourth that day at Athens in 2004, “If you’re going to get beaten, you want to be beaten by tough bastards. And that day, New Zealand surely had the toughest men in the field.”
One of the Kiwi triathletes was Bevan Docherty, the reigning ITU world champion. The other was 33-year-old Hamish Carter in his last shot at Olympic glory, having finished a disappointing 26th at Sydney despite being a pre-race favourite.
If the smart money was on Docherty as the two close friends battled shoulder-to-shoulder, no one had told Carter. About 400m from the line the Aucklander used his race-day knowhow to break free and banish the memory of Sydney four years earlier.
“Everything was on the line for that race,” says Carter. “Athens was my last shot at the Olympics but I’d enough experience to re-write the way I trained and approached the race. My coach stuck to the fundamentals and I brought the innovation. I trained less than everyone else but when I trained hard, I trained harder than everyone else.”
As Carter’s Antipodean rival Bennett said, here was one tough guy of triathlon.
10. End of an era
Beijing Olympic Games 2008
Scott and Allen, Newby-Fraser and Baker, Brownlee and Gomez… elite triathlon is defined by rivalries, with fine margins often deciding heavyweight contests.
Two athletes dominated women’s short-course racing in the noughties, regularly winning any race they started but rarely seen on the same startline, which made Emma Snowsill and Vanessa Fernandes’ battle at Beijing 2008 such a seismic showdown.
Portugal’s Fernandes had won the test event and ITU Worlds in 2007 but 2008 would see Australia’s Snowsill produce an undefeated annus mirabilis, breaking free early on the run in China and, with her asthma inhaler tucked into her top, once again unleashing the day’s fastest run split to usurp Fernandes by a minute.
Snowsill would become Australia’s only Olympic gold medallist in tri, with the race also marking the beginning of the end of the Snowsill/Fernandes era.
9. Lord of the (five) rings
Beijing Olympic Games 2008
A day after his future wife Emma Snowsill would write herself into tri Olympic history, Germany’s Jan ‘Frodo’ Frodeno made his breakthrough victory in triathlon racing. And what a stage to do it on.
The German had been bubbling under the podium spots ahead of Beijing, with only 8% of the German tri community believing he would win gold (55% went for his compatriot Daniel Unger).
With 200m to go and facing the established tri order of 2000 Olympic champ Simon Whitfield, and ITU world champions Javier Gomez and Bevan Docherty, few would’ve bet on Frodeno to break the tape first.
Yet no one had told the German, with the 27-year-old too quick in the final reckoning and finally breaking the canny Whitfield with 50m to go.
“This year I’ve lost all of my sprints and that teaches you a lesson. I learnt mine at the right time,” Frodeno told 220 after the race. It wouldn’t be too long before he was learning how to win Ironman World Championships as well.
8. Strictly the best
Tokyo Paralympic Games 2020
The first day of competition in paratriathlon’s second-only Paralympics outing was a disappointing one for Team GB, with two fourth places, a cruel DNF for race-favourite Dave Ellis and no medals.
Fast forward to the second day and it was medals galore – gold for Strictly Come Dancing star Lauren Steadman, silver for George Peasgood and bronze for Steadman’s PTS5 cohort, Claire Cashmore.
7. Silver linings
Tokyo Olympic Games 2020
With Alistair Brownlee left off the start list, and Jonny Brownlee’s form just slightly podium-off (he would still finish a phenomenal fifth), GB medal hopes were swiftly pinned on Georgia Taylor-Brown and Alex Yee, the latter having won the Leeds WTCS just two months prior.
Neither disappointed on debut, both bringing home silver medals to add to GB’s ever-expanding haul (eight – three gold, three silver and two bronze – as of 2021, making Great Britain the most successful nation in triathlon at the Olympic Games).
- Men's Olympic triathlon: Alex Yee wins silver in Tokyo
- Women's Olympic triathlon: Georgia Taylor-Brown fights back from injury and puncture to win silver in Tokyo
6. The finest of margins
London Olympic Games 2012
The heroics of the Brownlees had a major bearing on British triathlon history and saw the UK’s first Olympic tri medals, but the women’s Olympic race three days before was even more dramatic. It witnessed bike-course carnage, an injured home hero battling the odds, and the closest sprint finish imaginable.
Brit hopes rested on Helen Jenkins and, after a wet bike course played havoc, the Welsh athlete was in the mix with 5km of the run to go. But it was Swiss star Nicola Spirig who controlled the tempo, dropping her rivals until the finishing straight when Sweden’s Lisa Norden surged back into contention.
With a packed grandstand and the Hyde Park crowd producing a deafening noise, both athletes broke the tape together and plummeted to the floor. Norden raised both arms first in celebration and there was brief talk of a tie, before Spirig was announced as the winner. After 1:59:48 and 51,500 metres of racing, it’d come down to just 15 centimetres.
5. A star is born
Sydney Olympic Games 2000
The favourite for the men’s event in triathlon’s Olympic Games debut was Simon Lessing, Britain’s five-time ITU world champion. But it’d be another Simon – a 25-year-old Canadian named Whitfield – who’d take the headlines. “Lessing just didn’t seem to be enjoying the occasion,” Whitfield recalled. “But I was having a blast!”
Whitfield entered T2 in 24th place before passing Germany’s Stephan Vuckovic late on the run to break the tape in front of the Opera House. A tri legend was born.
Whitfield would go on to race in four Olympics, taking a silver in 2008 and receiving the honour of bearing Canada’s flag at the opening ceremony in 2012.
4. Capital gains
London Olympic Games 2012
After 12 years of hurt, dodgy guts and crashes on the Olympic stage for the various British squads, UK triathlon’s golden moment arrived on 7 August 2012. It was an era-defining day that the sport on these isles is unlikely ever to top.
And yet the Brownlee brothers’ charge to gold and bronze in front of a six-figure crowd in Hyde Park wasn’t without incident.
Alistair tore an Achilles at the start of 2012 (and had famously bonked at Hyde Park in 2010), while Jonny picked up a 15sec penalty out of transition on race day, which saw arch-nemesis Javier Gomez digging in until the final throes to split the duo for silver.
The Brownlees’ aggressive racing, honesty and ability confirmed their status as superstars of triathlon to all those watching, and proved a major factor in triathlon’s UK growth in the following years.
It was a monumental moment in British tri history, but the brothers would go even better at Rio 2016.
3. Golden debut
Tokyo Olympic Games 2020
Since its inception in 2009, the mixed relay format has been a winner with athletes and crowds alike, eager to keep up with the frenetic, edge-of the-seat style action, but Tokyo in 2021 would be its first outing on an Olympic stage.
GB, USA and France were the three main pre-race favourites… and would share the podium in that order.
Collecting gold alongside Yee and Georgia-Brown were Jess Learmonth, in her Olympic debut, and Jonny Brownlee, making him the most successful Olympic male triathlete of all time.
2. Fluffy for president
Tokyo Olympic Games 2020
Bermuda’s Flora Duffy was the one to beat in Tokyo… and no one could. But we doubt anyone really minded, such is her popularity on the short-course circuit. Plus, it was the one remaining title that had eluded the Commonwealth, three-time World Triathlon and six-time Xterra world champion.
Catching the main pack out of the swim, her victory was rarely in doubt – even if Georgia Taylor-Brown hadn’t had a puncture, she wouldn’t have been able to match Duffy’s blistering 10k pace.
And so she became her home country’s first-ever Olympic gold medallist. A national day was marked in her honour and she was made a Dame.
1. Rio Bravo
Rio Olympic Games 2016
Sixteen years after tri’s Olympic Games debut, triathlon felt like part of the established order at Rio in 2016. Part of the sport’s huge growth and raised profile, especially in the UK, was down to two Yorkshire siblings, who delighted tri fans new and old with their aggressive racing styles, strength across all disciplines and brotherly bond.
And, with the setting of the world’s most famous stretch of beach, the Copacabana, and its Sugar Loaf mountain backdrop providing the scenic eye candy, it was the brothers Brownlee who utterly dominated in Brazil, controlling the race on the swim and bike before ditching the pretenders on the run.
The Brownlees showed they still had the measure of the rest of the world, upgrading to gold and silver as the breakaway tactics played out to perfection. Ali would become the first man to win two Olympic tri golds; Jonny would follow his London 2012 bronze with a silver.
Top image credit: Jamie Squire/Getty Images
