Swim shortest distance, Is this fair

I am a swimmer, and I've never seen the relatively shorter swim distances as either "fair" or "unfair".  Triathlon is (IMHO) one sport made of three legs, not three sports.  If I am a good swimmer but crappy runner, it's up to me to become a better runner while staying good at the swim.  Unfortunately for me, I am also a crappy biker... so I've just gotten used to being FOP out of the water and MOP-BOP at the end.

Glass half full would say I get to see a lot of racing styles as they pass me

It's just the way it is.

One more hard core swimmer agreeing with Chris. FOP-MOP-BOP for me too.

Cheers

This debate comes and goes; it is what it is.

I do think, however, that race directors are missing a pretty cool opportunity in not offering sort of "equi-temporal" triathlons--races where each of the disciplines takes approximately the same time. It could be marketed as a way to "prove" who's the best triathlete--swimmers, cyclists or runners.

It could be a 2 mile swim (which would take elite swimmers ~32 minutes to complete), a 25k bike (which would take elite cyclists ~32 minutes to complete) and a 12k run (which would take elite runners about 32 minutes to complete). Put it together and you've got a race that would take as long, approximately, as an Olympic-distance race (the best triathletes aren't going to approach those individual splits).

We can add some free throws in there while we are at it so it will be fair for the basketball players as well!!! LOL.

This is my understanding of how the oly distances came to be.

The distances are set such that the time lost for each disipline between any two choosen percentile finishers is the same.  For instance, in an oly dist race, the 75th percentile finisher and the 25th percentile finisher time may differ by 9 minutes and the time lost will be 3 minutes from each disipline. 

Of course this is only true when doing a large staticistal analysis and not just comparing two people.

Also, a wetsuit legal race essentially makes the swim "shorter" and therefore skews the answers alittle.

I have done my own analysis of a few larger races, you know for fun, and have found this to be escentially true.

we have a very short sprint here in Redondo Beach that was designed that way, unfortunately it's just too short.  1/2 mile swim, 6 mile bike 2 mile run.

I agree too.  However, I was a FOP/BOP/MOP but worked on the bike to bring it up.

HOWEVER, I just realized in the last race, I don't enjoy they swim as nearly as much as I used to.  I'm glad it's "short".  It's hard to stay in it mentally now with the sensory deprivation.  Can't see much, can't hear much, can't feel much due to the suit.  Can't eat or drink.  I actually look FORWARD to the bike now that I can hold my own (I can't believe I just said that).....

Please forgive a question from ignorance/inexperience, but could someone explain why having three roughly equal lengths (time-wise) would prove which athlete (swimmer/cyclist/runner) is the best athlete?  For that matter, how does any triathlon prove anything about this issue?  I'm not seeing this.

I'm not saying it does, just that it would be clever to market a race as such.'

However, it's not a stretch to say that triathlons unfavorably handicap swimmers, both in relative length of the discipline and from the use of wetsuits (which offer a greater advantage to slower/less efficient swimmers than for faster/more efficient swimmers). So, by offering races that negate that disadvantage, you could make the argument that everyone would be competing on a more level playing field.

Think about it: what if the decathalon, for example, gave more points for certain events and less for others. What sense would that make? By having swim distances in races that take 1/4 to 1/6 the time it takes for the cycling and running events, aren't you doing the same thing? 

Kinda, but I shouldn't have used 9 minutes as an example.    I didn't mean to infer that the time diff between 75th and 25th was nine minutes. Instead if we think of the overall time difference as X then the time lost in each disipline would be approx X/3.  Also a race of 100 people is not large enough to be statistically significant.

Also the numbers do work better if you look at the rankings of each disipline.  ie. the time difference btween the 25th and 75th swimmer will be about the same and the time difference between the 25th and 75th runner (or biker), for and oly distance race.   Again, if your statistical pool is lagre enough.

It does.  It's based on performance, not place, and they have different values for different events based on the scoring tables.

Well the short answer would be yes.

If you accept my contension that 1.5/40/10 is a "balanced" race without a wetsuit, then to keep it balanced a wetsuit legal race would have to have a slightly longer swim.
I remember recently reading an article (in the USMS magazine) that a wetsuit helps all swimmers equally as far a reduction of a percentage of time.  So if everyones time goes down an  equal percentage you can see that the absolute time differential between a slow and fast swimmer will decrease.
Although I must say that I am not really ready to fully accept the articles' premise as intuitively I feel that wetsuits help slow peaple even more that an equal percentage.  But that could be because a wetsuit helps me more that anyone else I know.  But that fact isn't statistically significant.

I'm starting to like the reverse Olympic format. That way I could get my weakest leg over when I'm rested. I could then go for it on the bike instead of holding back as I have to now.

 I just used a wetsuit in a race for the first time. They seem like cheating to me. The reverse format would solve that. if you wanted to wear one you would have to put it on during the transition from the bike. That would even out the advantage you get from the wetsuit.

Finally, I absolutely agree that after you come out of the water, you must make 2 free throws before you could cross the finish line. The crowd would love it: watching exhausted people coming out of the water with frozen brains trying to make free throws. A perfect format that would be sure to attract more sponsors and TV coverage.