womens olympic finish wow (spoiler)

I am just now watching the womens Triathlon, maybe I am missing something, but there seems to be an awful lot of drafting going on.

Quite legal in Olympic/ITU triathlon.

I was confused by that too at first. I'm super new to the sport so I didn't know the rules but they said at one point that drafting is a part of the strategy in both the swimming and biking legs.

I guess I never realized that the Olympics Triathlon was draft legal.  I think drafting really takes away from the sport.  The only time that I can see drafting as a good thing would be a the full Ironman distance with wave starts.

It changes the strategy certainly, but I don't think it takes away from the sport, its simply just a different set of rules.

In many ways it adds to the drama. It makes being a strong swimmer important because if you aren't then you will miss being in the lead pack of cyclists. You still must be a strong cyclist to keep up with, or even break the pack and running even becomes more of a race as you arrive at T2 with a bunch of really fast people.

Go tell that to Lukas Verzbicas. He is one of the best runners out there, but until his swim gets a lot better, he's going to be at the mercy of some good luck on the bike leg. A strong swim doesn't guarantee a good finish, but it makes it so much more likely that you'll get to show your running skills. In ITU racing, if you have a poor swim then you're toast.