Winning at the Triathlon

Amazing news. The International Triathlon Union has changed their rules.

You can now run barefooted.

I wrote about their rules before, in Men of Iron, Feet of Pudding. They used to say that the athletes will not “run without shoes or run barefoot on any part of the course.”

However, if you look at their latest rules, that section is in red (indicating it has been deleted) along with a note saying

DELETED AS OF DECEMBER 2014

Here’s that page:

ITU Rules Change

How did this happen?

Well, it happened because of the concerted efforts of some barefooters. They took the effort to contact the ITU, educate them on barefoot running, and follow through.

The reason for the change, according to Gergely Markus, the Sports Director of the ITU, was

The driving factor was to be more inclusive with our rules, partly based on feedbacks from the groups you mentioned below.

Those groups were the Society for Barefoot Living and the Barefoot Runners Society.

Don’t ever let anybody tell you that you cannot make a difference.