OPTIMIZATION OF SWIMMING PERFORMANCE IN TRIATHLON

Swimming performance improvement is significant in the context of Olympic triathlon at elite level, as it may result in a triathlete exiting the water closer to a group of athletes prior to the cycling stage. Moreover studies demonstrate that drafting in swimming, results in an improvement in pedaling technique and efficiency during cycling (Delextrat et al., 2003). Despite the variation in swimming performance of elite triathletes is generally small, longitudinal observations of swimming performance in the top 20 elite triathletes in the world compared to that of the remaining field indicate that swimming performance is crucial at Olympic distance triathlon at elite level (Bentley et al., 2008). Therefore, researches that addresses optimization of swim performance in triathlon is of paramount importance in order to improve results. Swimming performance in elite triathlon competitions is influenced by several factors, such as stroke pattern or drafting technique (Cejuela et al., 2007). In order to improve the swimming performance of elite triathletes, two levels may be considered. The first or macro level includes the overall competition strategy in the swim leg which includes taking into account several factors such as place to start, current directions, pace, buoy turning and others. At a micro-level, factors that need to be studied are the front crawl