The Parc Olympique Sports Centre in Montreal is gearing up to host a clutch of the world’s finest short-course triathletes on February 25. But this will not be your standard swim-bike-run. Instead, athletes will compete in the first round of the 2023 Super League Arena Games, a racing format that blends both virtual reality and real-life racing. By the time the four-event series wraps up in London six weeks later, a fully sanctioned esport world triathlon champion will be crowned for the second time.

If that represents a rapid rise for a treadmill and turbo trainer-based competition born out of a pandemic two short years ago, then you ain’t seen nothing yet. Come 2024, pros might be competing in the same race in different locations across the world, and eager amateurs could be “ghosted” in to race alongside their favorites. (Good luck keeping up!)

These races are all set against increasing rumblings of the Olympic Games embracing esports, and wanting to kick it off with something that would live up to founder Baron Pierre de Coubertin’s Citius, Altius, Fortius vision. If this is the gamification of triathlon, it might also be the future of triathlon.

“The development potential of the product is massive, and that’s important,” says Michael D’hulst, the founder and chief executive of Super League, whose stewardship and attention to detail has placed the brand at the vanguard of the sport. “If we couldn’t trickle it…