Other forms: triathlons
A triathlon is a race made of three sports in a row with no rest between them: swim, then cycle, then run. Wetsuits in a cold lake at seven in the morning, a rack of bikes waiting, and a long last stretch on legs that have nothing left.
The distances vary enormously. A sprint triathlon takes about an hour; a full Ironman takes most of a day and finishes in the dark. The person who does one is a triathlete, and the part where you drop the bike and pull on running shoes has its own name — transition. The word sits in a family you can read off: biathlon is two events, pentathlon five, heptathlon seven, decathlon ten. Say it tri-ATH-lon, with the stress in the middle.
1nountriathlonA race combining swimming, cycling and running, done one straight after another.
“He finished his first triathlon in under three hours.”
triathlon is a sporting event.
Triathlon is a made word, two pieces bolted together: tri for the three sports, and athlon, the same ending that finishes decathlon, pentathlon and biathlon. A young word for a young sport, built on a very old Greek pattern.
From tri + athlon.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA