Do runners have the advantage? (Page 2)

Cool results!

So what do people mean when they say a particular triathlon course is a "runner's course" or a "cyclist's course"?? You hear this in the ITU races when there's a particularly flat 10k... this is a "runner's course". 

And who's to say that, even though these results indicate runners = OA higher position, it might just be that these people are better TRIATHLETES because they've paced themselves well throughout the entirety of the race to finish strong. 

Yeah, being a strong swimmer lets me finish a race in a time similar to people who are way stronger cyclists and runners than I am - hardly useless when I have a head start of a few mins out of T1.

The key thing is the adjectives: being a poor swimmer precludes a high finishing position, true.  But being only a moderately-good cyclist or runner precludes a high finishing position.  You only have to swim well enough to get along, but you need to be a really good runner or cyclist to actually win.  Very few people have are good enough at the other two legs to survive being a "poor" runner or cyclist.

To actually answer the original question: Yes, I believe runners have the advantage.  They have a background in the more important of the two more-technical sports.  It seems it's not extremely hard to become competent at cycling (especially in AG where you can nearly spend your way to the front), but it is hard to become really good at running and swimming.

Yes, runners have an advantage.

The faster a biker goes, the more power it takes to overcome wind resistance. Runners don't have this issue, or at least not to the same extent.

Also, as someone who has been accused of being a strong biker I get passed on the run way too often

AGREED!   ^^^^^^

Josh Beck is crazy fast.  blows my mind how he could run like that at Savageman last year.  nice guy too. i buy some stuff from his shop from time to time.

While I ahve not done a study on the matter or anything official like that...it would seem to me to be true!  Yes, a good runner still has to be able to swim and bike well, but I do think they have the advantage.  Just look at the elite ITU series, it seems like it always comes down to the run!

   I did notice something about the race results from my last OLY race in June. 

1.) Not all of the top ten finishers finished top ten in the swim.

2.) Not all of the top ten finishers were one of the top ten runners.

3.) BUT...8 of the top ten finishers were also within the top ten on the bike portion.

   This could just be a coincidence, but it could also point to what others have said about the bike portion being what we spend the most time on in a race (non-draft-legal). 

Here's an intersting post at Slowtwitch about what Criag Alexander has to say about the bike and run.

http://www.slowtwitch.com/News/Craig_Alexander_says_his_best_is_yet_to_come__2181.html

The correlations are interesting, and one finds similar results from analyses of other events. But it would be misleading to conclude from this that swimming is not useful. One reason why the run and bike placings are so highly correlated with overall placings is that they are also highly correlated with one another. Performance in all 3 events depends on general aerobic ability, plus various sport-specific factors, such as swimming technique, bike aerodynamics, etc. The sport-specific factors are more important in swimming, unsurprisingly, and probably less important in running. Running times are highly predictive of overall placement not so much because running-specific skills are important, but because running relies so heavily on a factor that is important throughout the race, general aerobic ability. Run-specific skill may not be particularly important. In contrast, swim times are more strongly impacted by swim-specific skills, and that is why they are less predictive of overall placements.