Drafting in a triathlon is about reducing your drag as an energy conservation advantage. An athlete (or a vehicle) is incurring drag when moving through a medium like water or air (in other words, resistance to their forward progress). However, a trailing athlete following close enough to be in the lead athlete’s wake can avoid some of the full drag effect experienced by that lead athlete. This applies in varying degrees on the swim, bike, and even the run.

There are only triathlon drafting rules for the bike segment in a draft illegal event. So, for the purposes of this discussion, we’ll focus on bike drafting.

Yes! Keep in mind that the wind resistance (aka drag) at about 25 km/h consumes about 70% of your power, and wind resistance increases as a square of speed increase (play with the scenarios yourself at this example site). So, reducing wind resistance can be advantageous to conserving energy usage. One method is body positioning. Drafting is another technique.

Here are a couple of data points about drafting distances and how much the wind resistance is reduced compared to being the lead cyclist (Source credit to Science Direct).

• Half a metre behind lead cyclist: 35%.

• Five metres behind lead cyclist: 30%.

You might have noticed in the diagrams that the lead cyclist appears to also have a slight reduction in resistance with a cyclist drafting them. This was an observed result in these studies.

On a related point, you may have noticed broadcast video of media motorcycles in front of cyclists. World Triathlon rules state there must be at least fifteen metres separation from a leading motorcycle – which still can provide roughly an 18% reduction in wind resistance at that distance (Source credit to Springer.com). Triathlon events with this situation will have instructions given to the motorcycle drivers being to avoid creating drafting advantages for cyclists.

Triathlon elite athlete events (e.g., Olympics, World Triathlon Series, World Cups, etc.) often include draft legal events – which means that they can draft each other. There are also a few Age Group (i.e., non-professional) events that are draft legal (e.g., World Triathlon Championship Final Age Group Sprint and Team Relay events which can be entered by qualifying at designated Triathlon Canada sanctioned events). Draft legal events create an additional tactical aspect of individuals and teams working together on the bike segment for potential gains on that segment, and mutual, energy-saving advantages for the run segment following.

However, many triathlon events are more about individual competition and achievement, and don’t allow drafting in the cycling segment (a.k.a. draft illegal). Most Age Group events are in this category, but there are some pro events as well (e.g., T100, Ironman, Long Distance, etc.)

It should be noted that some triathlon events are draft legal all the time: cross triathlon and winter triathlon are examples. However, the opportunities to draft in those events is viewed as limited. And Para events are always draft illegal.

A Technical Official will observe cyclists to ensure they comply with the drafting rules from a fairness point of view. For most events the following World Triathlon rules apply:

• The drafting zone is a rectangular area whose length is 12 metres from the leading edge of the leading bike’s front wheel to the same of the trailing bike, and the width of the road (usually bordered by the shoulder and road center line). To get an idea of what a 12 metre distance is:

  • The bike racks in Age Group transitions (with the horizontal tube to hook your saddle) are often about 3 metres in length – so, 12 metres is four of those racks end-to-end.

  • On the road, a 12 metre draft zone gap between the back of the lead and front of the trailing bikes would fit about six bikes.

• If a trailing cyclist enters a leading cyclist’s drafting zone, the trailing cyclist has 25 seconds to move forward so that their front wheel leading edge to be in line with the leading cyclist’s.

• At this point the cyclist’s roles of leading and trailing reverse.

• The trailing cyclist (who has just been passed) must now make steady progress to the rear and be outside of the now-leading cyclist’s draft zone within 25 seconds.

• A leading cyclist who has a trailing cyclist passing within their draft zone cannot speed up.

• A trailing cyclist must commit to passing a leading cyclist and cannot repeatedly enter and exit the back of the leading cyclist’s draft zone.

A pro T100 event has a variation of the time and distances above with a 20 metre draft zone and 45 second draft zone time limit.

A violation of the bike drafting rules above is subject to receiving a penalty.

If you want to read the World Triathlon rules on this subject, go to https://triathlon.org/documents and search for “competition rules”. The current rules document should be in the result list near the top. Find the drafting rules in the cycling section.

The athlete violating the drafting rules will be approached by the Technical Official (usually on a motorcycle), make eye contact, be shown a blue card, and will be told “Racer [number], drafting penalty, you have to stop at the next penalty box”.

After being told that you must report to the next penalty box, you might then wonder, “Where is the penalty box, and when do I have to stop at it?”

The penalty box is usually set up under a tent whose location can vary depending on the event. You should know its location for your event by reading the athlete guide in advance, or finding out at a pre-race briefing, or you can ask a Technical Official in transition before the event starts. Here are some typical setups:

• At higher-end events, it would be on the bike course. If there are multiple bike laps, it is usually near the end of each lap. NOTE: For a multi-lap bike course that has a bike penalty box, you must stop at the next encounter with the penalty box. That is, you don’t have the option of skipping it and stopping on the next lap.

• At mid-level events with fewer officials, it may be in transition.

• In some events with very few officials, the penalty time may be added to the overall race time result.

An important thing to know is that drafting penalties cannot be protested or ignored. For a bike drafting penalty, you *must*stop at the penalty tent, or your race result will be a disqualify (DSQ).

What happens when you stop at the bike penalty box/tent? Your racer number will not be displayed. You must:

1. Dismount the bike and tell the Technical Official your racer number, the number of penalties to serve (hopefully it’s only one!), and the colour of the card(s) received. The number of blue and/or yellow cards shown is important to relay to the penalty box Technical Official, because the Technical Official relies on this information from you to calculate how long your penalty time will be.

2. Then the penalty time will be started. NOTE: if you decide to visit the toilet while serving the penalty, the time will be paused until you return. And you cannot service your bike or use anything that isn’t already on your bike or person (e.g., fluids, nutrition, clothing).

3. When the penalty time has elapsed, the Technical Official will say “Go” and you can mount and return to the cycle course. Watch out for other athletes passing the penalty tent to avoid a collision or obstructing.

What will be your penalty time for drafting? The penalty time amount for each drafting occurrence depends on your event distance:

• 30 seconds for Sprint and shorter,

• 1 minute for Standard and Pro T100,

• 2 for middle distance, and

• 3 for long distance.

If you receive a second drafting penalty in a Sprint or Standard event, this will result in a DSQ race result. For a Pro T100, Middle Distance, or Long Distance event it’s the third drafting penalty that will result in a disqualify (DSQ).

As a side note, you may have also received a yellow card for various non-drafting violations on the bike course (e.g., littering, blocking, illegal riding position, etc.). If so, the following times are tacked on to be served in the penalty tent for each violation:

• 5 seconds for events shorter than Sprint,

• 10 for Sprint and Relay,

• 15 for Standard,

• 30 for Middle Distance, and

• 1 minute for Long Distance.

A new technology is arriving on the triathlon scene to assist athletes and Technical Officials in determining whether drafting violations are potentially in play. RaceRanger equipment has been installed on a limited basis over the last couple of years at elite and professional events. As time goes on, this technology may be implemented at other events. More detailed information is available on the RaceRanger web site (www.raceranger.com), but here are the highlights:

• When the athletes’ bikes are in transition, a device is placed on the front fork (to identify the proximity of a trailing bike) and on the seat post (to indicate the drafting zone status to the trailing bike’s cyclist).

• Once on the bike course, the trailing cyclist will see various light indications on the leading bike’s RaceRanger device mounted on their seat post.

  • Within five metres of entering the draft zone, a solid orange light.

  • Within two metres, a solid blue light.

  • Within the draft zone, a flashing red light.

  • Once the trailing athlete passes the lead athlete’s RaceRanger device, the red flashing light will stop.

  • Once an athlete is passed, they will become the trailing cyclist and will then see the new leading cyclist's RaceRanger red flashing light until they exit their draft zone.

• These draft zone indicator lights can easily be seen by the athletes behind a leading bike so that they can self-monitor their draft zone rule compliance. These lights can also be seen by the monitoring Technical Official with visibility reaching hundreds of metres behind the cyclists.

  • When the red flashing light begins flashing, and the Technical Official judges that a drafting situation applies, the Technical Official will begin counting the seconds. Of course, the trailing athlete that has entered the draft zone can do the same to stay within compliance of the drafting rules.

  • Once the allowed time period expires, and the red flashing light is still showing, a drafting penalty could be applied by the Technical Official as described above.

This technology is evolving and is expected to have more data capture and communication enhancements to add more Technical Official oversight capabilities. See the RaceRanger web site (www.raceranger.com) for more information.

Technical Officials tend to consider the following when applying the drafting rules and penalties.

• Level of the event: A low-level, recreational event may be approached as an athlete development opportunity, and the Technical Officials may give ‘warnings’ to cyclists. However, don't count on that and don’t be surprised to see the blue card if you're found drafting (especially if the drafting is blatant and/or reoccurs)! On the other hand, if the event is a qualifier for other events, or where the ranked results are used to determine championships or similar achievements, the competition fairness becomes more relevant, and the drafting will be more closely monitored and penalized.

• Steep, uphill grades: If cyclists are slowed considerably going up a steeper hill, they’ll usually get more bunched up. This may be taken into account, but don’t use that as an opportunity to get right behind some (a blatant drafting situation!)

• Course areas exempt from drafting violations: These would be locations like the mount/dismount areas, approaching bike aid stations, tight/180 turns. A given event may also have other areas designated in the athletes’ guide where drafting enforcement is waived.

How does a drafting penalty get tracked?

1. When a Technical Official gives a drafting penalty, they’ll document information about the penalized athlete. See the voucher example on the right to view the kind of information collected.

2. The bike penalty box Technical Official will document each racer that stops at the bike penalty box, what time of day that occurred, what the athlete provided in the number and colours of cards, and the amount of time served.

3. The bike Technical Officials will occasionally stop at the bike penalty box and hand over any completed draft penalty vouchers.

4. The bike penalty box Technical Official will reconcile the penalty vouchers with the list of penalties served by the athletes.

5. The Head Referee Technical Official will receive the reconciled bike penalty information. Any athletes who did not serve the required penalty, or has received more than the allowed number of drafting penalties, will have their race results marked as DSQ.