The International Paralympic Committee (IPC) and the International Triathlon Union (ITU) on Monday (6 August) confirmed the eight Paratriathlon medal events that will be contested at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games.
In Tokyo there will be two more medal events and 20 additional athletes compared to Paratriathlon’s debut at Rio 2016, where 60 athletes contested six medal events. There will also be gender parity in the Japanese capital with four medal events set to be contested by women and four by men. All medal events will feature 10 athletes.
The medal events that have been chosen by the ITU and approved by the IPC are:
Women: PTWC, PTS2, PTS5, and PTVI
Men: PTWC, PTS4, PTS5, and PTVI.
“I am pleased with the decision of increasing the number of medals to eight and the number of paratriathletes competing in Tokyo 2020 to 80, which is two more medal events than in Rio 2016, and 20 more paratriathletes that will have the chance of vying for Paralympic glory”, said ITU President and IOC Member, Marisol Casado. “We will keep on working with the IPC for having more classes and more athletes in the next editions of the Games. But we are confident that the incredible performances of our paratriathletes, their strength and commitment and their show-stopping displays will have the potential to conjure up some more of that special magic that we have”, she added.
Jonathan Goerlach, ITU paratriathlete and member of the Athletes Committee, said: “This is another very exciting opportunity for our sport. In Rio we only had three medal events per gender, and we now have four. It is great to have a greater representation of our sport in the Paralympics. This is a step forward. We have to remember that we are still a quite young sport, this is our second appearance in the Paralympics, and although everyone wants to be there, and the ITU wants everyone to have the opportunity to be at the Paralympics, we are still growing. We have to keep the positive of this, and keep moving forward”.
In deciding which events to include in the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic programme, ITU assessed the depth of each class in terms of athlete numbers, nations competing and competitive fields while aiming to ensure the widest spread of impairment groups across both genders. Other criteria included in the consideration was to have viable events according to the IPC Handbook and possible considerations for the groups that were not present in Rio 2016.
The confirmation of the medal events follows Tokyo 2020’s announcement regarding the Paratriathlon courses on 2 August.
The Paratriathlon course will consist of a 750m swim, 20km bike ride and 5km run and races will start and finish in Odaiba Marine Park in Tokyo Bay. The swimming leg will take place in Odaiba Bay. The bike riding and running courses will wind their way in and around the park and will incorporate a number of technical aspects. The course will also pass through the West Promenade district of Odaiba, featuring waterfalls and greenery.
The Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games will feature 4,400 athletes who will contest 540 medal events across 22 sports. The Games will take place between 25 August and 6 September 2020.
