Triathlon - Will the home favourites live up to the demands of the fans?

Triathlon is a sport that compromises of three different disciplinces - swimming, cycling and running and was first introduced at the 2000 Sydney games as an Olympic sport and is one of the fastest growing Olympic sports.

The competitors will start the competition with a 1500m swim which compromises of two laps where the swimmwers come out of the water at the halfway point, a 42km bike ride over eight laps and a 10km run to the finish line. Between every discipline the athletes change out of gear from one event into the other and this is one of the most crucial stages of the race as valuable seconds can be lost. The men and women compete seperately, but compete on the same course. To win a Triathlon competition an athlete needs to have all-round skills on every event, have amazing stamina and the tactics to plan their races right. 

In the Men's competition the gold medal fight will be between two brothers that have become icons of the sport, Allistair and Jonathon Brownlee (GBR). They together have won all the World Cup events they have entered the last two years and are dominating the mens side of the sport. My prediction is that one brother will win and that one brother will take silver making the home crowd go wild. For the Women's competition the field is a bit more open, but the favourite is another brit Helen Jenkins (GBR), but she is facing hard competition from Erin Densham (AUS) and Emma Snowsill (AUS) who are also red hot favourites.

All in all I think it's coing to be a public celebration with thousands of people lining the track to witness the GBR athlethes try to take the gold medals. It's going to be a feat to watch and I can't wait to see who will come up on top.