Triathlon makes a comeback in Quebec with a physically distanced race in Gaspé

Think of the sport of triathlon, and you picture a mass of writhing bodies splashing through the water, hopping onto their bikes still dripping wet and racing away, then abandoning those bikes and running, breathing down each others' necks toward the finish line.

Forget physical distancing.

So how do you organize a triathlon in COVID times?

"We were told, 'you can't do it,' and we said, 'OK, fine,'" said Julie Lefebvre, who is on the organizing committee for the annual Gaspé triathlon. Their usual event was cancelled, as were dozens of other races on the Triathlon Québec calendar.

Then the Gaspé triathlon organizers came up with a plan.

On Friday evening, 36 triathletes showed up on the shore of Gaspé Bay, in front of the local hospital, setting off one at a time, 15 seconds apart, to swim the 1.5-kilometre distance to the Halte Routière.

Bright and early Saturday morning, they raced the bike leg around the bay — once again, departing every 15 seconds. In the afternoon, they'll return for the run.

Someone will clock them and add up their times.

Usually a triathlon is not spaced out this way, with the swim, bike and run all taking place at different times. How quickly you can transition from one sport to the next is all part of the game. But not this year, where the risk of triathletes cheek by jowl in the transition zone is not just a chance they might trip over one another.

There will be no T-shirt giveaways, no medals, no post-race lunch. Still, it's the first chance in 2020 for triathletes in Quebec to race — and some are travelling all the way to Gaspé from the Montreal area to get a chance to do that.

"So many people like to have a goal when they train," Lefebvre told CBC's Quebec AM Friday. "We looked into different options."

"We said, let's go lower key and try to offer something that makes sense — that won't bring too many people into town, and those people that like to have a goal will have that."

• Listen to CBC Quebec AM's guest host Peter Tardif in conversation with Julie Lefebvre

The format of the Gaspé triathlon all but ensures the competitors can keep well apart, Lefebvre said. For the swim, they seeded themselves from fastest to slowest, so there is less chance of an athlete catching up to and passing the swimmer ahead. The bike route is on a road with wide shoulders, therefore there is lots of room to pass safely.

The participants all got a race kit explaining the rules.

"Everybody's ready to be careful and make sure that there's not going to be a pack of runners together," said Lefebvre.

There's a lot riding on the success of this weekend's race. It is a "test drive" for a triathlon that will be double in size, with up to 80 participants, on Aug. 15 and 16, said Lefebvre. And barring any new surge in COVID-19 cases, there are at least two bigger races elsewhere in Quebec on the horizon.

TriMemphré and Esprit races in September

Other veteran triathlon organizers are committing to physically distanced races in September, under something closer to the usual format.

TriMemphré on Lake Memphremagog was to have celebrated its 25th anniversary in July with a full slate of 19 races, from duathlons to aquabike races to a 70.3-kilometre long distance triathlon, for triathletes of all ages, from five and up.

That race was cancelled, but organizer René Pomerleau has the go-ahead from the City of Magog to hold a one-day event on Sept. 5. It will be limited to 1,000 participants, aged 13 and up, with 500 competing in the morning and 500 in the afternoon.

The 36th Esprit triathlon festival at Montreal's Jean-Drapeau Park, the biggest triathlon in Canada, is all-systems-go for Sept. 12 and 13. It is a fast, flat course that in most years attracts 3,500 triathletes and more than double that number of spectators.

Danny McCann, the race's founder and director, said he was determined from the start of the pandemic to hold the event, but with the public health guidelines constantly evolving, he is scrambling to pull together a race that everyone who wants to can participate in, while keeping it safe.

Spectators will be discouraged and those that show up must wear masks. Athletes will wear masks, too, except when competing.

"We'll have garbage pails right at the edge of the water," McCann told CBC Montreal's Let's Go. "You throw your mask in the garbage pail, and away you go. At the finish line, we don't have finisher medals, but we'll have a mask for you."

• Listen to the full interview with Danny McCann on CBC's Let's Go

The swim takes place in the Olympic rowing basin.

"Normally, we'll have 150 to 200 people in a wave start," said McCann. This year, swimmers will stand two metres apart, and four to six of them will run into the water every 10 seconds.

If it works out well, McCann said, COVID or no COVID, he may adopt the rolling start for future races.

"It's no fun getting an elbow in the stomach or kicked in the head in the swim," he said. "When you're in the middle of that pack, it's 150 people all going at the same time in the same direction."

Bikes will be spaced out in the transition zone, and McCann said the Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve, where the bike leg takes place, is wide enough that no one has an excuse to pass another athlete too closely. Ditto for the run course around the rowing basin.

There will be no awards ceremony and no finishers' plaques, but McCann is promising to send those who would normally be on the podium a photo of themselves crossing the finish line.

That photo will be a keepsake for sure, in a triathlon year like no other.