Multisport

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (December 2009)

Triathletes begin the swimming stage of the 12th World Military Triathlon.

Multisport is a family of athletic competitions in which athletes race in a continuous series of stages or "legs", and rapidly switch from one athletic discipline to another in order to achieve the best overall time. Most multisport events are endurance races, consisting of aerobic activities such as cycling, running, kayaking and cross-country skiing.

Familiar events from the Olympic Games such as the pentathlon, decathlon, and modern pentathlon are not usually considered to fall in this category because their individual components are not held back-to-back.

[edit] Standard Multisport Event Names

The world of multisport competitions has grown from the older and more traditional triathlon and duathlon competitions, and today includes a large number of variations. There is quite a bit of variation in the naming of these events; the more common and most standardized names are listed here.

Adventure racing includes races which comprise a number of different stages of different types. In many adventure races, the competitors do not know some or all of the stages before the race, and must handle unexpected challenges.

[edit] Related Events

Biathlon, which consists of alternating stages of cross-country skiing and shooting is often confused with duathlon because of the similarity in names. Some consider biathlon to be a form of multisport event, while others exclude it from the category because the athlete's score includes shooting accuracy in addition to total race time.