Swim

The elementary back stroke is painfully slow.  I learned that one in Boy Scouts and it was one of me best strokes so I put it to a 200m time trial a year of two ago and despite giving it my full sprint effore I was  about a minute slower using the elementary back stroke.  So I started to use the traditional back stroke in work outs when I needed a breather.  My brother said that he he was comfortable in open water swim but if he ran into problem he could always roll over and do the traditional back stroke when needed.  Of course he finished his Full Ironman swims in 55 minutes so I am guessing he didn't  spend much time on his back.  While my brother was doing swim team in Highschool I was at wrestling practise so I am not as good a swimmer as he is .  I have calf cramps and switched to back stroke will working through it.  I have used both elementary and traditional bask stroke for that tracitional is 100 times better if you are trying to race.

Note:  When I started the swim training 3 months before my first 70.3 I couldn't go 15 yards doing the front crawl.  I was in the pool 4 time a week working on drills and made enough progress to use freestyle as my primary stoke on race day.  Free style I was much faster than traditional backstroke.  You can learn the freestyle. If I can learn it most anyone can.

I agree with Curtis.  Freestyle (front crawl) is the way to go.  There's too many negatives for using backstroke (other than use as a recovery stroke) in a triathlon.  It's slower than freestyle, you can't sight very well, you can't maneuver around other swimmers very well and, for me, the kick is more taxing than the freestyle kick.  The elementary backstroke is all the above plus the kick can be hazardous to swimmers coming up from behind.