Amudha and the city’s triathlon trailblazers

CHENNAI: Long before road running turned into a popular pursuit for city folks in Tamil Nadu in the aughts, a motley bunch of boys and girls used to zealously hit the Marina beach front boulevard at the break of dawn every day.

If they weren’t running, they’d rack up the miles on bicycles, or put in laps by the dozens at the adjoining Anna Swimming Pool, often doing all three in the swim-cycle-run format.

The group formed Chennai’s original triathletes, the trailblazers so to say, at a time in the 1990s when triathlon was still nascent in India, and the term was yet to find its way into the country’s sporting lexicon.

Chennai has been closely associated with the growth and development of triathlon in India, and the sport’s governing body in the country, the Indian Triathlon Federation (ITF), and its national academy is situated in the city.

N Ramachandran, CEO of the ITF and who has previously headed the World Squash Federation and the Indian Olympic Association, founded the Tamilnadu Triathlon Association (TTA), and his wife Surekha, was the guiding force behind the group of trailblazers, who were predominantly state-level swimmers hailing from the fishermen community.

In fact, the inaugural National Triathlon Championship was held in the city in 1991 after the formation of the national body, and two years later local girl C Amudha would go on to win the Asian junior title in China.

“The lot of us were from the same swimming club (Tamilnadu Swimmers Parents Association) and running was always a part of our training. Coming from the fishermen community, we loved the outdoors and endurance challenges,” reminisced Amudha, a multiple-time national triathlon champion.

“Ma’am (Surekha), who founded TSPA, introduced us to triathlons and constantly motivated us. We used to compete both in swimming competitions and triathlon. The bottom line was that we enjoyed the intense and hard training that triathlon calls for,” she added.

Being a multisport event, triathlon is physically demanding in its standard format of 1.5 km swimming, 40 km cycling and 10 km running. Shorter distances (Super Sprint, Sprint, mixed Relay) were subsequently incorporated globally, allowing for increased and wider participation across ages and fitness levels.

With time, duathlon (run-cycle-run) and aquathlon (run-swim-run) also became popular internationally. There is also long-distance triathlon and the Ironman (70.3/half & 140.6/full) where athletes must possess very high levels of stamina and endurance.

Triathlon has developed a passionate following across Tamil Nadu and India, especially with the exponential growth of road running and cycling in the country for health and fitness. In fact, 1200 triathletes from India and abroad took part in the third edition of the Ironman 70.3 in Goa earlier this month.

“A lot of people in their late 20s and 30s are taking up triathlon and are passionate about it, which is great for the sport,” said Harish Prasad, Development Officer, Indian Triathlon Federation.

“It also means that the young ones in their families will be introduced to the sport at an early age. Our primary focus is to get more youngsters into the sport for India to consistently make an impact on the global stage,” he concluded.