Abstract
This brief review investigates how sex influences triathlon performance. Performance time for both Olympic distance and Ironman distance triathlons, and physiological considerations are discussed for both elite and non-elite male and female triathletes. The relative participation of female athletes in triathlon has increased over the last three decades, and currently represents 25–40% of the total field. Overall, the sex difference in both Olympic and Ironman distance triathlon performance has narrowed across the years. Sex difference differed with exercise mode and exercise duration. For non-elite Ironman triathletes, the sex difference in swimming time (≈12%) is lower than that which was evidenced for cycling (≈15%) and running (≈18%). For elite triathletes, sex difference in running performance is greater for Olympic triathlon (≈14%) than it is for Ironman distance triathlon (≈7%). Elite Ironman female triathletes have reduced the gap to their male counterparts to less than 10% for the marathon. The sex difference in triathlon performance is likely to be due to physiological (e.g., VO2max) and morphological (e.g., % body fat) factors but hormonal, psychological and societal (e.g., lower participation rate) differences should also be considered. Future studies should address the limited evidence relating sex difference in physiological characteristics such as lactate threshold, exercise economy or peak fat oxidation.
Highlights
Triathlon is a unique endurance sport that combines swimming, cycling and running over a variety of distances (Bentley et al, 2002)
In 2018, the Swiss woman Daniela Ryf won the Ironman Triathlon World Championship for the fourth time in a row, in a time of 8 h and 26 min, and placed 25th overall. She reduced the gap to the male winner to 7.1% of total time2 which is much less than the 10–12% sex difference that is typically evidenced by elite endurance athletes (Joyner, 2017)
By analyzing the performance of elite male and female triathletes in international Olympic distance triathlons from 2009 to 2012, Rüst et al (2012b) found that the sex difference in running (14.3%) was greater than that which was evidenced for swimming (9.1%) and cycling (9.5%)
Summary
CAPS UMR1093, UFR STAPS, Faculté des Sciences du Sport, Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale (INSERM), Université de Bourgogne-Franche Comté, Dijon, France. Specialty section: This article was submitted to Exercise Physiology, a section of the journal Frontiers in Physiology This brief review investigates how sex influences triathlon performance. Performance time for both Olympic distance and Ironman distance triathlons, and physiological considerations are discussed for both elite and non-elite male and female triathletes. For non-elite Ironman triathletes, the sex difference in swimming time (≈12%) is lower than that which was evidenced for cycling (≈15%) and running (≈18%). Sex difference in running performance is greater for Olympic triathlon (≈14%) than it is for Ironman distance triathlon (≈7%). The sex difference in triathlon performance is likely to be due to physiological (e.g., VO2max) and morphological (e.g., % body fat) factors but hormonal, psychological and societal (e.g., lower participation rate) differences should be considered.
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