Originally Posted by
PepeM
What is the most important in a triathlon? Is it the run? That would be my guess.
That's a complicated question - you can only win in the run, of course, but you can certainly lose in the swim or the bike (or transition, for even more fun). Further, extreme run fitness can mean nothing if your bike fitness is low enough that you can't get off the bike and run close to as hard as you can fresh and, the fitter you are on the bike, the less it will take out of your run.
Personally, I did well with focused run training and "good enough" bike training, which meant lots of getting passed on the bike and lots of passing people back on the run.
The longer distances (half-iron and ironman) make the bike more central.
But, in draft-legal tri as these girls are doing, it's swimming and cycling that are most important, quite clearly, because you
must be in the first or second swim pack because you
must be in the first or second bike pack to have a shot of accomplishing anything. All the run speed in the world won't save you if the fast cyclists went flying away from you in a beautiful peloton while you struggled with the weak ones, or burned all your matches trying to catch up.