Quadrathlon

Quadrathlon refers to the sporty four-way battle between swimming , cycling , canoeing and running . Sometimes the sport is also referred to as a quadriathlon . Quadrathlon is completed in the four different standard distances sprint, short, long and ultra (see below ).

Related sports besides triathlon and duathlon is the canoe triathlon , a combination of running , cycling and paddling. The first canoe all-around competitions already took place in the 1930s. In the German Federal Association for Quadrathlon (QUAD), the hydrathlon is also run as an (associated) sport. This combination sport consists of: swimming - running - kayaking. In contrast to the triathlon and canoe triathlon, it is "water-dominant" with two water disciplines.

Quadrathlon offers ambitious multi-athletes the advantage of a balanced relationship with regard to the strain on the upper and lower body. A good endurance , strength and technique are required to successfully complete a competition . This sport is of particular interest to triathletes and canoeists, from whom the majority of square athletes are recruited. But also versatile amateur athletes see the quadrathlon as an opportunity for a balanced all-around competition.

history

The first quadrathlon was launched in 1989 by the Italian Sergio Ferrero in Ibiza . It was the Diamond Man Long-distance quadrathlon of 5 km swimming, 20 km kayaking, 100 km cycling and 13.1 km running.

Sergio Ferrero ensured that the quadrathlon spread across Europe. So in 1992 the WQF ( World Quadrathlon Federation ) and the EQF (European Quadrathlon Federation) were founded with the participation of the Czech Václav Marek .

Competitions

The world association WQF organizes world championships and a world cup in the quadrathlon. Since 2006 there has been a national series in Germany, the Germany Cup.

The WQF differentiates between the following distances:

distance	swim	Kayaking	To go biking	To run	WQF standard distance
Sprint distance	750 m	4 km	20 km	5.0 km	Yes
Short distance	1,500 m	8 kilometers	40 km	10.0 km	Yes
Long distance	5,000 m	20 km	100 km	21.1 km	Yes
Ultra distance	10,000 m	40 km	200 km	42.2 km	No (is rarely aligned)

Since quadrathlon is an outdoor sport , the competition distances can fluctuate due to landscape requirements (especially at championships in coordination with the relevant associations). In Sedlčany , for example, the 2007 Short World Championship was officially held with distances of 1.5 km swimming, 7 km canoeing, 50 km cycling and 10 km running. For this reason, it makes sense that there are no world records (best times sprint, short or long distance), but rather course records.

regulate

The competition rules of the German quadrathlon are e.g. a. on the rules of the WQF (World Quadrathlon Federation), the DKV ( German Canoe Association ) and the DTU ( German Triathlon Union ) as well as the individual discipline associations (UCI, BDR, DLV etc.).

Seasons

In many quadrathlon events, relay teams are also offered - also known as team competitions. These are not relays made up of several individual quadrathlons, but multidisciplinary relays in the order of a quadrathlon. As in the individual swimming relay, one discipline is completed in succession for each relay participant . Teams can thus consist of pure specialists. Often one then compares the time difference between the specialist relay teams and the square athletes.

Some organizers also offer (individual) fun relays, in which teams of two can compete. B. paddle in a two-person kayak and ride a bike in tandem . In contrast, “real” quadrathlon relays in the style of a relay race , as there are experimentally in triathlon, have not yet been carried out. Instead i. d. R. Team scores formed by adding up the individual times of square athletes who have completed the competition simultaneously (national teams, club teams, free teams, mixed teams).

Conception

The four disciplines of the quadrathlon are a combination of disciplines that have to be practiced without outside help or using route advantages (individual competition, individual sport). They are combined in such a way that a balanced endurance competition is guaranteed, i.e. H. Uniform demands on the respective sections are required and are carried out one after the other without stopping.

Quadrathlon arose from the claim to combine two water disciplines and two land disciplines into a demanding endurance all-around competition. One could therefore orientate oneself on rational-physiological criteria:

Quadrathlon has the "symmetrical" discipline distribution that characterizes the sport:

	S.	K	R.	L.		S.	K	R.	L.
2 × water	J	J	N	N	↔	N	N	J	J	2 × land
2 × upper body / arm dynamics	J	J	N	N	↔	N	N	J	J	2 × lower body / leg dynamics
2 × technical / device discipline	N	J	J	N	↔	J	N	N	J	2 × "naked" discipline

The analysis of the athlete's relative speeds also shows a high level of balance between the individual disciplines: Canoe and bike races are completed at about three times the speed of the analog "naked" disciplines: an average reference square athlete with a kayak is about 9 km / h and when swimming it is about 3 km / h fast, when cycling individual time trial it reaches roughly 30 km / h and continuously a speed of about 10 km / h. For a top sport quadrathlete the speeds are approximately 4 km / h, 40 km / h, 12 km / h and 15 km / h, a leisure-active grassroots athlete reaches speeds of around 2 km / h, 20 km / h , 6 km / h and 7 km / h.
At the same time, the physical strain is inversely proportional to the speed - in other words, a speed of 10 km / h while cycling requires only about 1/3 of the energy expenditure compared to a run at 10 km / h and this can be stated analogously for kayaking / swimming , or the energy input to reach a speed of 9 km / h while paddling is roughly similar to that for 3 km / swimming (analogous to cycling / running).
To complete the respective individual routes of the respective disciplines / competition sections, this means for the respective duration:

	S.	K	R.	L.
Long distance:	1-1.5 h	2.5-3.5 h	2-3 h	1.5–2 h ¹
In more general terms:	1 ZE	3 ZE	3 ZE	1 ZE ²

¹ h = hours

² ZE = time unit

In comparison, a triathlon ultra / long distance end time is calculated as an addition of only about 1 TU swimming, but 5–6 TU cycling and 4–5 TU running (to put it sarcastically, the triathlon ultra distance (Ironman) is a " Wet duel ").

The attraction of the quadrathlon is generated by the necessity of the "equal mastery of all disciplines".

Associations

WQF (World Quadrathlon Federation)
EQF (European Quadrathlon Federation)
QUAD (Quadrathlon Alliance Germany)
DKV ( German Canoe Association )

There are currently ten national associations of the WQF: Canada, Germany, France, Great Britain, Mexico, Poland, Slovakia, Spain, the Czech Republic and Hungary.