In a Non-Draft Pro Race: 12, 16, or 20 Meters? Or Should We Care?
When IRONMAN began in 1978, the race promised individual racing – in other words, non-drafting.
Until 2015, the draft zone at triathlon races varied based on each country’s federation rules, which generally were between 7 and 10 meters. Officials used their own judgement and, like today, penalties were inconsistent and pretty controversial. In 2007 the 7-meter rule was fairly standard at IRONMAN races around the world and, moving into 2015, the current 12-meter professional draft zone, with 25 seconds to pass, became the standard.
“Drafting” and “drafting penalties” have always been a huge talking point. The Challenge Family race series was the first to implement a 20-meter draft rule, which was featured at some of their races in 2016. Over the next few years the 20-meter zone became the standard at Challenge and all the Professional Triathletes Organisation (PTO) and T100 races. (Think back to that wonderful line of riders around the Daytona International Speedway for the PTO 2020 Championship.)
On “Non Drafting” and “Fairness”
I was taken back a little bit while I watched the Lionel Sanders YouTube video yesterday morning. Up until this point, it had never really occurred to me just how focused everyone was on “fairness” on the bike. I have been shaking my head over the last couple of months as I keep hearing people say “20 meters is more fair,” or “you get too much of a draft at 12 meters.” I kept thinking that, if everyone is following the same rules, it’s not about whether something is “fairer,” but rather about what you personally think is your strong suit, and if you think that the current rule benefits, or hurts, you.
That led me to think about other parts of the race where drafting happens that aren’t issues for any of the people who are very pro-20 meter zones when it comes to what they feel is “fair.” So maybe we will be having a conversation about drafting in the swim, or on the run, sooner rather than later, since we see the “train” coming every time the men exit the water. We are starting to see that on the run, too – just look at the worlds in Nice this year – five guys running together like it was a group effort, taking turns into the wind on the Promenade des Anglais. And to be frank, the media, athletes and viewers loved every single sec of it. Following the race I don’t think I heard a single pro athlete say “that run was unfair.”
My point is that I don’t think this conversation will stop here.
Where We Are Today
IRONMAN’s Recent Testing
Until now, the conversation on drafting zones and distances has been led by been gut checks, ChatGPT and misguided TV angles. I’m not saying those are bad, but I’m saying they are guesses. So, finally, as a reaction to a vocal group, IRONMAN is actually taking the time and spending some money on actual testing. Now, while I have said I have been disappointed in the amount of testing so far (based on all the hype), I do like the guy that is doing the testing, and I like the guy inside IRONMAN that got upper management to finally approve getting something done. You can listen to us talk about this testing with Jimmy Riccittello here:
I would like to point out that this is not the first time IRONMAN has done testing. It’s believed it was done years ago under the direction of Ben Fertic (IRONMAN’s CEO from 2004-2012). These tests were done with Ford in a wind tunnel, but those results were never released to the public. And, to my knowledge, they are the only race organization that has actually done any proper testing.
The Recent PTN Effect
Pro Tri News (PTN), in my opinion, has been the driving force on this subject outside of some individual professionals and, for the most part, have done a pretty decent job at gathering information. I also think the noise they have made pushed IRONMAN to do some testing again.
They (PTN) do seem to be pretty one sided, and I would say that some of them are jumping the gun over the last couple of days on “results,” but that could just be them getting excited and/or convinced of what they think will happen.
While I think some of their polling questions could have been asked better (in hindsight I, too, could have asked better polling questions here on Slowtwitch in some of the polls we have taken), it has brought a lot of information to the table to be considered. I think that is a great thing – you can find pretty much all the results of their polls on their Instagram account or in their podcast.
The Hand that Feeds Everyone
We all know that IRONMAN is really in charge of this whole thing. While the company does care about opinions, the company executives will, of course, do what is best for the health of their business. I would encourage them to do just that. So far, IRONMAN has been very methodical in how they are dealing with this. The people looking into these questions are taking their time with the testing and will not rush the process, or make any changes, without looking into all aspects of any decision.
To make a change to the draft zone would, in fact, be a large undertaking. Through lots of experience over the years the folks at IRONMAN know that such things need to be carefully thought out. IRONMAN officials also claim that the feedback and results they have been getting aren’t the same as those given to, and reported by, PTN. Will there be some sort of compromise that makes sense?
We just started our own internal polling on this subject which we will report later. And, of course, as with all polls, our questions are likely skewed from our side of the table.
What is my personal opinion on this matter, and why write this article?
It occurred to me the other morning that personally, I don’t really care about a 12- or 20-meter draft zone. And, in my opinion, neither should anyone who isn’t a pro triathlete. In the end they are the ones that seem to be asking for an extended draft zone, and they are the ones that will have to deal with the change of it. But I do care that people (the triathlon community) get proper information so that they can make good decisions. I think that is why I, in the end, wanted to get involved with this conversation back when I first listened to Talbot Cox talk about this issue in Kona. As we move forward into 2026, our vision at Slowtwitch will be very much focused on more than just IRONMAN and the pros. We have a great groundswell happening at the grassroots level of our sport, and we are committed to helping those new athletes and race directors outside IRONMAN and the T100 series. We will still cover these subjects and topics, but you’ll see way more about other things, too.
So, in my opinion, here are some of the positive and negatives around this subject and the possibility of expanding the pro draft zone to 20 meters:
Positives
- Unified rules across the different professional race series
- Put up or shut up. Everyone waving this flag of “fairness” will get what they want, and the results will come in. No more “theories.” just proof
- It will be easier for us to get photos at races 🙂 Trying to shoot a line of 20 pros in Kone for our side angle stories is very hard at 12 meters 🙂
- We can move on from this subject (this has been talked about for too long)
Negatives
- Without further adjusting race timing, it will push pro male athletes into the faster pro women. (20 meters pushes things back, not forward)
- It will create more interesting dynamics with looped courses and age-group interference. (Age-groupers can slot in, and they only need to be 12 meters behind.) So, imagine a fast age group male catching slower pro females – following their rules, they can overtake and slot in. The female pro they passed now needs to be 20 meters behind that age group male and, as soon as that male chooses to leave and try to pass, she now has a 32-meter gap to keep with the group ahead. (lets not even talk about the lack of race ranger in this situation that is not on that Male)
- It will almost double the amount of time it will take for any pro athlete to make a pass, assuming the same rate of passing
- It will give athletes less chance to pass, and limits the parts of the course in which they can. (Looped courses and winding narrow roads in Europe are a thing.)
What would I like to see more of? First I want to see some data. As in real, concrete, white-paper data. We all know that they have a bigger drafting benefit at 12 meters then 20 meters. But how much? And, again, does that really matter?
I want to see them dive into some timing data over the last four years. IRONMAN has it. They can 100% get, and give, a better Idea on what actually is happening with packs. They now also have RaceRanger stats to go off of. So a combination of those, I think, would be very helpful. For example, my instinct is that we will have issues within the women’s fields if no other rules change. But I don’t really know that without data. But, I bet if you got all the data from the timing mats and put those numbers into some simulations, you can figure it out.
I want way more testing done, especially considering all the fanfare that has been created around this topic. If IRONMAN doesn’t do more testing after this, then I don’t know how serious they really are. We need women included in the aero testing and we need them tested in different situations to better mimic real-world racing conditions. For example why did we only test 5 guys? Is that the average size of the packs that are the issue?
And, why not pilot this for a couple of races? IRONMAN has opportunity to leverage some of their non-Pro Series events as a testing bed for rule changes. There’s precedence in other sports for this, too, where rule changes are first tested before being rolled out to the big stage. The pitch clock in baseball originated in the minor leagues before hitting primetime.
But, as I said at the outset: this probably isn’t the last conversation about this topic.
I agree that fairness is the wrong word to use in this discussion. An unfair race is one where the existing rules are not enforced, not some thought experiment on some other rule that is not in place.
And a thing I see a lot in these discussions is some % saved in some position in the line. Need to keep in mind that what needs to be determined is the % difference between the 12 to 20m, not the spot behind the leader.
And for historical context, the sport was never meant to be “completely” non draft. Non draft was just a phrase used to describe that the bike was to be a time trial and not a road race. And that time trial was to have a two bike length gap(about 7 meters). That was a Federation rule as well as an Ironman one. It has been pushed out for pros as Eric rightly wrote here, and this latest push is just that, a change in the status quo. Ok to change things in sport, just don’t pretend that it was mandated by they original founders/participants of the sport..Good article..
With 20m change, I think the rules should also be changed to allow pros to ‘slot in’. Maybe also add some additional rule along the lines of one can’t attempt a repass for say five minutes. With a large group of men at 20m, the percentage effort increase necessary to complete the pass of the entire group is quite significant, so high that many people won’t attempt to do so. One knows that either he/she won’t be successful or if he/she is, the extra effort will be so costly, it will negativly impact the rest of the race. Instead, one most likely chooses to just sit in the line.
I was going to include that but I felt like I was already long winded…
I would disagree with the implication here that pros are the most important stakeholders in this issue. Pro triathlon races don’t exist for the benefit of professional triathletes. Pro athletes aren’t the customers. Rather, they are part of the product. The spectators are the customers. The question Ironman should (and likely will) ask themselves is not what the pros want, but whether switching to 20 metres will make their races a better product which will generate more interest from spectators. Ultimately, as long as it doesn’t go so far as to impact the willingness of professional triathletes to compete in Ironman Group races, making the pros happy isn’t at the top of Ironman’s priority list. And I would hazard a guess that the length of the draft zone is not at the top of many pro triathlete’s criteria for deciding which races they will do.
All in all, when comparing the potential positives and the potential negatives, going to a 20 metre draft zone looks like a ‘solution’ which has the potential to create a lot of new problems but doesn’t solve anything which is actually in any need of solving. Less draft benefit is not per se a plus point.
The main issue is that a mass start individual time trial on the same course is an inherently contradictory idea. That contradiction becomes even more pronounced when factoring in real life logistical constraints. Just watching the second lap of the bike leg of a multi-lap bike course like Challenge Roth or Ironman Frankfurt where the pros have to weave through masses of age groupers really makes that point. You don’t need to equip every age grouper with RaceRanger to see that even the 12 metre distance is often not observed under these conditions, not only among age groupers but also between age groupers and pro. Not out of maliciousness, but because it is often simply not realistically possible on such a packed course.
The whole debate of 20 m versus 12 m feels like a huge distraction, an attempt to avoid having to face the reality that, even with 12 metres, the vision of a non-drafting bike leg is and will always be more of an aspiration whose faithful implementation as intended often simply won’t be possible under real race conditions.
The drafting effect is so much greater on the bike compared to the other disciplines that the fairness argument probably comes from wanting to make the opportunities in the disciplines as equal as possible. A weak swimmer can never hang on to a strong swimmer and a weak runner can never hang on to strong runner despite drafting, but a weak cyclist could hang on to a strong cyclist if drafting was allowed on the bike(except on a really hilly course). I think it’s about managing that balance somewhat through a reasonable non draft distance between athletes, even if things can never be 100% fair as the sport is made up with its different distances etc.
I have said this many times but the only way to make things interesting with drafting allowed, or with a short non draft zone, is to place the bike last. Otherwise there will come a time when no one will have any incentive to do anything as it’s not worth expanding that much energy for potentially very little gain before the marathon. If you don’t have to run afterwards the dynamics will be different as it doesn’t matter if you reach the end of the bike centimeters or minutes ahead of your competition.
The spectators are clearly split on this issue. However, almost all the pros want a 20 meter draft zone. They are the ones most keenly aware how much a shorter draft zone negates the possibility of making major moves on the bike. I am pretty sure the switch to 20 meters is going to happen this year, and I am very excited for it. We will see a new set of superstars emerge in full distance triathlon, as it will allow for uber bikers to put up to 20 minutes on the field.
On this note, IM and t100 should do pilot a draft legal road bike race for pros
You’ve got this backwards - there’s more benefit on the swim than there is on the bike.
As an example, the last men’s Kona (where Lange barely held on to the group and then ran through them) there was a group of 10 who came into T2, with Laidlow, Ditlev and Kalinn ahead of them.
How many came into T1 together? 22
I hope you’re not trying to compare something that happens the first hour in the race to what happens 5h into the race.. You’re also comparing drafting(swimming) to non drafting(bike).
Even if we take your example there were 56 athletes that started the swim and 22 of them came in together after the swim. Then out of those 22 athletes that started the bike together 10 of them came off the bike together. So a larger percentage of the athletes that started the bike together were riding with each other compared to the percentage of athletes that swam together. That would indicate that even staying at 12m on the bike had a bigger effect than drafting on the swim.
From the studies I have seen the draft reduction on the swim is about 15-20% for reference. One example: Drafting distance in swimming - PubMed
That’s funny, I just had the same thoughts about “fairness” in my reply in the IM test thread. Hadn’t seen this yet!
But we won’t be able to. I remember a European colleague tell me how excited they were that the US had elected a black president so we could move on from racism. I smiled, and said I wish that were true, but I suspect not.
Now, the two things are clearly not the same, but “just give them what they want so they can stop talking about it” didn’t work with race ranger. It became more of a thing. The similar groups said IM need race ranger to solve the drafting problems. They get race ranger, and then we are all wondering if it makes drafting even worse, because now everyone can calibrate their draft. And we are debating merits of penalties in certain places. And did they pass when the light blinked. And show us the data! And we are just barely at the point of wondering if we can trust the data from one unit to the next. Etc.
T100 went to 20m, and we have people sitting in groups, and I’m certain some of the people in those groups feel like they were treated unfair by others based on who did what work. At 20m! Every race report in the T100, except the leaders off the front, talk about the group they were in, and working together (or not), etc. It will still be a thing.
They just won’t talk about needing to go to 20m…instead they’ll say, this was such a problem, but it’s a good thing we were at 20m, because can you imagine how bad it would have been if we were at 12m? Sacre bleu!
My point is that if the draft pack was this all consuming absorber of athletes, that it wouldn’t dissipate to the same degree. It should pick up stragglers coming from ahead and strong bikers coming from behind.
That 15-20% is most certainly a bigger benefit than whatever benefit is found on the bike and I’ll take it step further and argue that there’s a bigger difference in ability on the swim is what we see. As an example, Sam Long is ranked 197th on the swim, but a 197th ranked cyclist or runner would never make it to T100, or either of the IM branded WCs. (in fact, the 197th ranked cyclist’s best result was 18th at Roth). You can be a sub-par swimmer and be considered a top ranked athlete, but you can’t be a sub-par cyclist.
I mean, my whole point from the beginning was that the absolute drafting effect(drafting directly behind) is bigger on the bike vs the swim/run and hence why it makes sense that there is a non drafting rule on the bike to create more selection. Whether the distance between athletes should be 12 or 20m I don’t know, but it’s certainly plausible that 20m could be the most equal(guess that’s why they’re testing it).
12m dosen’t mean that no one will ever get dropped but it creates situations where it’s very hard to do something on flatter courses because there is always someone who can cover gaps in a group and up the power for short period of times. The cost of trying to do something is high and the reward is low so it might lead to more and more passive racing as the sport progresses.
The dynamics on the bike also differentiate it from the swim since it’s impossible to react as quickly to gaps opening in the water with fewer athletes being able to help closing gaps down. As short as the swim is it still creates breaks despite direct drafting.
I betcha Ben Kanute wouldn’t mind going to 20m on the bike and doubling the swim distance… how about you Sam?
What sort of issues had you in mind? Is this the interaction between:
If the former then in almost every such situation, the man rides straight through, after all he’s caught (?10) minutes already. I’d observe we rarely see this on the broadcast as it happens ‘down the field’. Different draft zones for the two athletes has little impact. From a motoref PoV it’s clear (from the RR) who is the pro and who is the amateur.
If the latter then the MPro and the WPro will both have Race Ranger and both be required to respect a 20m/16m draft zone. Their interaction will be no different to the challenges with a 12m draft zone. The only two times I can recall this ‘seen’ was at Oceanside 2022 and maybe Sodaro in Eagleman last year. The solution to that is maximising the gap MPro - WPro, recognising RDs need to get the amateur waves rolling / road closure time limits, and slow MPro behaviour education.
Entirely agree that interrogation of the data would offer examples.