In 2014, I witnessed the most unbalanced elite sporting event I have ever seen. It was the Commonwealth Games Men’s Triathlon, held on a blisteringly hot summer’s morning in the lovely surrounds of Strathclyde Country Park in Glasgow. The race consisted of two laps swimming round the park’s lake, before heading off on a 40k bike ride, and finishing with a 10k run. As the competitors dived into the water, with England’s Alistair Brownlee the favourite, it soon became clear this was not the sort of competitive field the Olympic champion was used to. As he and his brother Jonathan, plus athletes from South Africa, Canada and Australia, ploughed off, there were a couple of entrants doing breaststroke at the back. They looked, as the Brownlees tore off into the distance, like a pair of Sunday afternoon splashers. Pretty soon, as the slowcoaches bobbed their way gently through the water...
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