1,300 athletes, 3 races and one helluva triathlon

The 9th edition of Hyderabad Triathlon turned out to be a grand success as over 1300 participants from various walks of life sweated it out to clinch the top prizes on Sunday. Held at two locations — Gachibowli and Shankarpally — the event saw the participation of national and international athletes, fitness enthusiasts as well as the general public.This event also saw participation of close to 400 athletes from metros such as Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, Chennai and Delhi.
This year, the event was divided into five categories —the Half Iron, Olympic, Sprint, Mini and Novice, of which the Mini and Novice categories were aimed at encouraging new entrants and the rest were for professionals. While around 150 participants took part in the Mini and Novice categories, over 560 participants vied for the top spots in the professional categories.

PEDALING WITH ENDURANCE
After completing the first leg in the swimming pools, the participants swarmed the ISB Road for the cycling race. In this leg, the Mini and Novice cyclists pedalled for 4 km and 8 km respectively while the professionals cycled for 90 km, 40 km and 20 km in the Half Iron, Olympic and Sprint categories respectively.
A FINAL RUN TO THE FINISH LINE
Running, the last leg of the triathlon, saw the Mini and Novice categories compete in 1 km and 2 km races respectively. In this leg, the professionals ran for 21.1 km, 10 km and 5 km runs in Half Iron, Olympic and Sprint categories respectively.

KICKING OFF THE TRIATHLON IN THE POOLS
The activities kicked off early in the morning at the two swimming pools in Gachibowli stadium and Shankarpally where participants of all the categories began their first leg of the triathlon. While the Mini and Novice entrants swam for 50 and 300 meters, the Half Iron, Olympic and Sprint did for 1.9km, 1.5km and 750 meters respectively.