ITU President’s Olympic Welcome Message

Greetings, It has been four short years since the sport of triathlon made its debut on the programme of Olympic Games. With the Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge with those gigantic Olympic Rings as a backdrop, Triathlon burst onto the Olympic stage in a way that none of us could have predicted.

Since the 2000 Olympic Games, the Triathlon World Cup and World Championship events have tried to emulate the organisational, technical, and media excellence that the events in Sydney brought to the sport.We are now on the eve of Triathlon’s second appearance on the Olympic Programme. The ATHOC triathlon team, led by Gergely Markus, has worked as a cohesive unit to create a spectacular venue in Vouliagmeni with one of the most challenging bike courses in the world.

The two lap swim course in Vouliagmeni Bay will set the stage for the centre piece of the event, the 6 lap bike course with one killer of a hill on each lap. The hill has been named “Mount Michel” after Michel Gignoux, the technical delegate to the Games who designed the bike course. Michel was lost earlier after many years of battling cancer.

With whatever is left in the legs after the bike, the athletes will then finish the event with a 3 lap, 10km run course. There will be 50 of the world’s best men and women competing in the Olympic Triathlon, including both Olympic Champions from 2000, Brigitte McMahon (Switzerland) and Simon Whitfield (Canada). With a record number of flags in the event, and incredible depth in field, those who will stand atop the podium are anyone’s guess.

I extend my best wishes to the athletes, organizers and technical officials – may they all reach a Herculean standard of excellence during those two days of competition in Vouliagmeni – 25, 26 August.

To the media and guests– thank you for joining us for the Triathlon. I suspect that you will agree with me when I say that triathletes are arguably the best athletes in the world.

Les McDonald, President