Triathlon Trivia
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
7correct to beat the crowd
48 free Triathlon trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Triathlon is barely fifty years old and already has more legends than most sports. This quiz starts in Mission Bay, San Diego, in 1974, when 46 runners swam in the dark by car headlights, and follows the story to Hawaii, where a bar-room argument about the fittest athletes produced the Ironman, and to Sydney 2000, where the sport joined the Olympics. Along the way it covers the standard distances, the T1 and T2 transitions, drafting rules, wetsuit temperature limits, brick workouts, Clydesdale divisions and why you cannot call your race an Ironman. The people are here too: Julie Moss crawling to the line in 1982, Dave Scott and Mark Allen, Paula Newby-Fraser's eight Kona titles, Chrissie Wellington, Daniela Ryf, Jan Frodeno, Kristian Blummenfelt's sub-seven, Simon Whitfield, Gwen Jorgensen, Flora Duffy's gold for Bermuda, the Brownlee brothers and Alex Yee. About a third of the questions are easy for anyone who has done a sprint tri, a third are medium and the rest will test serious multisport fans. Every answer is verified against reference and biography pages, and each question carries its source.
30 of 48 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Under USA Triathlon rules, what must athletes put on and fasten before taking their bike off the rack?
Their helmet
Their helmet: the chin strap has to stay buckled from the moment the bike leaves the rack until it is racked again, so athletes clip it shut before they touch the handlebars.
Q 02The first modern triathlon was held in 1974 at Mission Bay in which city?
San Diego
San Diego: members of the city's track club met at 5:45 on a weekday evening for a race that opened with a run and finished with a swim, the reverse of the order used today.
Q 03Which American cyclist raced triathlons as a teenager in Texas before switching to road racing?
Lance Armstrong
Lance Armstrong: after retiring from cycling in 2011 he went back to triathlon, until the doping ban that cost him his seven Tour de France titles shut him out of that sport as well.
Q 04Why was the men's triathlon at the 2024 Paris Olympics postponed by a day?
Pollution in the Seine
Pollution in the Seine: heavy rain had washed sewage into the river and the water failed an overnight safety test, so the men raced the next morning, straight after the women.
Q 05Which bike-leg tactic is allowed in the Olympic triathlon but banned in an Ironman?
Drafting behind a rival
Drafting behind a rival: with slipstreaming outlawed, an Ironman ride becomes a solo time trial, while Olympic fields bunch into packs, which shifts the emphasis onto the run.
Q 06Which cyclist's record oxygen uptake led Ironman founder John Collins to argue cyclists might be the fittest athletes?
Eddy Merckx
Eddy Merckx: to settle whether swimmers, runners or cyclists were the toughest, the founders strung three existing endurance races into a single day, and fifteen men turned up to try it.
Q 07The full Ironman distance is a 2.4-mile swim, a marathon run and a bike ride of how many miles?
112
112 miles: the handout for the first race in 1978 closed with a handwritten dare to swim 2.4 miles, bike 112, run 26.2 and 'brag for the rest of your life'.
Q 08The original Ironman combined the Waikiki Roughwater Swim, the Honolulu Marathon and what?
The Around-Oahu Bike Race
The Around-Oahu Bike Race: club cyclists had taken two days over that lap of the island, but Ironman entrants had to ride it in one go, straight after the swim and with a marathon still to come.
Q 09Who was the first person to earn the title Ironman, finishing the 1978 race in 11 hours 46 minutes?
Gordon Haller
Gordon Haller: he swapped the lead with former Navy SEAL John Dunbar on the run until Dunbar's support crew, short of water, handed him beer, and Haller pulled clear over the closing miles.
Q 10In 1981 the Ironman left Oahu for a new home on which island?
The island of Hawaii
The island of Hawaii, the Big Island: organiser Valerie Silk moved the fast-growing race away from Waikiki to the quieter Kona coast, where the bike course crosses barren lava fields.
Q 11What happened to 1982 Ironman leader Julie Moss within sight of the finish?
Collapsed and was passed
Collapsed and was passed: Moss crawled the last yards to finish second behind Kathleen McCartney, and the television footage of it inspired many viewers to take up triathlon.
Q 12Which magazine's 1979 feature on the Ironman brought the tiny race a flood of would-be entrants?
Sports Illustrated
Sports Illustrated: writer Barry McDermott was on the island to cover a golf tournament, stumbled on the race and gave it ten pages, and the next field grew from 15 starters to 108.
Q 13Which American became the first six-time winner of the Ironman with his victory in 1987?
Dave Scott
Q 21The Olympic triathlon is a 1.5 km swim, a 10 km run and a cycle leg of how many kilometres?
40 km
40 km: the 1.5 km swim, 40 km ride and 10 km run were fixed as the championship format when the sport's world federation was founded in 1989, and they have not changed since.
Q 22Which Canadian won the first men's Olympic triathlon by running down the leader in the final 300 metres?
Simon Whitfield
Simon Whitfield: well down the field when he got off the bike, he ran the fastest 10 km of the day and swept past Germany's Stephan Vuckovic just before the line.
Q 23How was the women's triathlon at the London 2012 Olympics decided after nearly two hours of racing?
By a photo finish
Dave Scott: seven years after that sixth win, and five years after he had last raced in Kona, he came back at the age of 40 and finished second, just short of a seventh title.
Q 14Which TV programme first filmed the Ironman in 1980, two years after the race began?
Wide World of Sports
Wide World of Sports: its coverage brought the race worldwide recognition, and within two years the field had grown from 108 starters to 580.
Q 15Which Zimbabwe-born triathlete won eight Ironman world titles between 1986 and 1996?
Paula Newby-Fraser
Paula Newby-Fraser: in 1995 she started the run more than ten minutes clear but was passed a few hundred yards from the line, then returned a year later to take her eighth and last title.
Q 16Which British triathlete retired unbeaten after 13 Ironman-distance races?
Chrissie Wellington
Chrissie Wellington: she was a virtual unknown who had turned professional only that February when she won the 2007 world title in Kona, and she never lost at the distance afterwards.
Q 17Daniela Ryf, who won her first Ironman world title in 2015, raced for which country?
Switzerland
Switzerland: Ryf raced the shorter Olympic distance at two Games before moving up, and she took that first Ironman world title by more than 12 minutes.
Q 18Which German became the first triathlete to win both Olympic gold and the Ironman world title?
Jan Frodeno
Jan Frodeno: he won Olympic gold in Beijing in 2008, then seven years later pulled away on the bike in scorching heat in Kona to complete the double.
Q 19In June 2022, who became the first person to complete an Ironman-distance triathlon in under seven hours?
Kristian Blummenfelt
Kristian Blummenfelt: the Norwegian clocked 6:44:25 on a German motor-racing circuit, riding behind a line of pacemaking cyclists, which is why the time does not count as an official record.
Q 20Triathlon made its Olympic debut at which Games?
2000 Sydney
2000 Sydney: the IOC's president had been pushing since 1988 to bring the fast-growing sport into the Games, and its world federation was founded a year later with that as its chief goal.
By a photo finish: Nicola Spirig and Sweden's Lisa Nordén crossed the line shoulder to shoulder and were given the same time, so the finish-line camera had to separate them for the gold.
Q 24At the 2016 World Triathlon Series final, Alistair Brownlee gave up his chance of victory to do what?
Help his collapsing brother finish
Help his collapsing brother finish: Alistair propped up the heat-struck Jonathan and pushed him over the line in second place, which left Jonathan four points short of the world title.
Q 25Jonathan Brownlee received a 15-second penalty at the London 2012 Olympics for what?
Mounting his bike too early
Mounting his bike too early: he spotted his number on a penalty board during the ride, sat out his 15 seconds in the penalty box late in the run and still held on for the bronze medal.
Q 26As of 2024, who is the most decorated Olympic triathlete, with two golds, a silver and a bronze?
Alex Yee
Alex Yee: in Paris he trailed New Zealand's Hayden Wilde by 14 seconds at the bell, then ran him down inside the final kilometres to take the individual gold.
Q 27Flora Duffy's triathlon gold in Tokyo was the first Olympic gold ever for which country?
Bermuda
Bermuda: Duffy went clear as soon as the run began and won by more than a minute, giving a territory of about 64,000 people only its second Olympic medal of any colour.
Q 28What was Gwen Jorgensen's job before USA Triathlon recruited her?
Tax accountant
Tax accountant: she was working at Ernst & Young when the federation's recruiters pitched her the sport, and six years later, in Rio, she won the Olympic title by 40 seconds.
Q 29Which nation won the first Olympic mixed relay triathlon when the event was added at the Tokyo Games?
Great Britain
Great Britain: the win gave Jonathan Brownlee the one medal he lacked, a gold to go with his individual bronze from 2012 and silver from 2016.
Q 30In 2014 triathlon's world governing body moved its headquarters from Vancouver to which European city?
Lausanne
Lausanne: after 25 years in Vancouver the federation moved to the city that houses the International Olympic Committee, joining the many other sports bodies based there.