Celebrating 40 Years of Ironman: How the Champions Perform We wanted to find out what discipline the strongest performance improvements in the history of the Ironman Triathlon in Hawaii and also which discipline had the greater impact on the entire race. Data from 1983 to 2018 The three best women and men of each year participated in the Ironman World Cup were taken into account.In addition to explorative data analyzes, linear regressions were carried out between intermediate times and years. Furthermore, a stepwise multi-linear regression was used, wherein the total time was used as a dependent variable and the intermediate times as an independent variable. Both women and men significantly improved their achievements from 1983 to 2018 at the Ironman World Cup. When swimming, there was the biggest difference in improvements between men and women (3.0% compared to 12.1%). Both women and men, a negative and significant decline in each discipline was found, with cycling the discipline with the greatest reduction. The results of gradual multiple regression showed that cycling for both sexes was the discipline with the highest influence on the total time.
Based on the results of this study, cycling seems to be the Ironman Triathlon discipline that has improved the total time most and is also the discipline with the greatest influence on the total time of elite men and women in the Ironman World Cup. The whole work can be found under https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/6/1019