The triathlon competition at the Beijing Olympics pretty clearly demonstrated what's wrong with draft legal triathlons.

In the women's race, we saw an American swimmer break away on the swim, creating a minute (or so) gap on the field.  Her reward for that effort was to fry her legs in a futile attempt to maintain that gap on a solo bike ride.   Meanwhile, the remainder of the field formed a peloton and rode her down with little effort.

In the men's race we saw two Swiss(?) riders break away from the main pack and create a minute or two gap.  It was instructive to watch the Swiss riders pedaling furiously, while some riders in the chase pack were actually coasting in the draft.  The Swiss riders managed to maintain their gap into t2, whereupon they were almost immediately (within the first lap) run down by the chase group.

What's clear from those two examples is that the draft-legal format eliminates any incentive for strong swimmers and cyclists to push their advantage.  Why push yourself if the result is either 1) you tow your competitors to the start of the next event or 2) you put yourself in the position of having to work harder than your competitors to maintain the same pace?

Drafting essentially reduces triathlon to a 10 K run with an eighty minute warmup.  No thanks.

I think the difference between the level of competition in Olympic/ITU races and age group races is pretty significant. The professionals are fast, well-trained and know exactly what they're doing. That's not always the case in your average Olympic-distance tri.

That said, I think draft-legal races would benefit the all-around triathlete and might even give the edge to stronger swimmers and cyclists. Imagine a fast swimmer coming out of the water and executing a quick transition. If they can form a paceline with other fast swimmers, they'll begin putting distance between them and the competition. A slow swimmer must then either be really, really good on the bike or must suck the wheels of others that he can keep up with and hope they catch the lead group.

And as Gale mentioned, don't forget about hills. They'll further seperate the good cyclists from the not-so-good. Transitions also become more important, as racers will want to make sure they don't miss out on getting in with a good group of riders. Knowing you need to be right with the leaders throughout the first two legs of the race will make it anything but an 80-minute warm-up.

Perhaps the biggest drawback to a draft-legal race is that many people won't be allowed to use their tri bikes. Though ITU racers use clip-on aerobars on a road bike, tri bikes probably shouldn't be ridden in a pack. Essentially, this will force triathletes to become better cyclists, rather than time trial specialists.

As a competitive cyclist for more than 30 years recently turned triathlete I take issue with the "early" statement that only elite triathletes have the bike handling skills to cope with a draft legal triathlon road race ,ha ha is that supposed to be a joke, where did they get these skills, I did not see any in evidence at the Olympics?

Personally I would prefer if triathlons did not allow drafting as I enjoy time trialling ( the race of truth) more than road racing so I guess I am happy to be an age grouper where it is not an issue. Generally a good bike rider can do both well , i.e look at Lance.

Unless you have a team around you that allows team tactics to come into play such as was the case at the Olympics to a limited extent, I don't think your typical triathlon is going to turn into the Tour de France with teams pitted against each other if drafting is allowed. In most amateur level bike road races there is stil plenty of opportunity for strong lone riders to breakaway by attacking at the right moment so no one should worry if drafting suddenly becomes legal. Typically these winning riders will have time trialling and bunch racing skills so I guess if drafting becomes widely allowed people will just have to incorporate some new skills into their workouts , i.e , learning to ride above threshold for short periods and recover fast , riding in bunches, and learning when and when not to attack. Note there is also a world of difference between Pro level bike racing where teams tactics are fine tuned (everyone one has a specific job to do) and even top level amateur bike road racing.

I watched both the mens and womens olympic events and thought the draftining ruined the bike sections.

PS I assume only "elite only" events allow drafting, e.g .how could drafting for just the elites be allowed in your typicall event where elites and non elites go off in waves. What happens if one or two slower elites get caught by the front of the following wave behind them ? It would be unreasonable for the elite to be able to draft off other riders and not vice a versa ?

I would never participate in a draft legal event.  My view of triathlon racing is that the strongest on the bike and the run should win the event.  Draft legal levels the playing field and turns triathlon into a swim run race.   If they turned Ironman into draft legal, I'd probably turn to Ultra running.

I don't agree that the strongest on the bike and the run should win.  I think that the way that standard triathlons are setup, those athletes that are the fastest runners tend to win the events even if they are only moderately good at swimming and cycling.  I guess this is a whole different discussion in and of itself.

I think a lot of it come down to the exact distances, swimming loses out as relatively speaking it is the shortest discipline, maybe that section should be longer . As a biker I keep my eyes open for events where the bike section is maybe slightly longer than standrd, eg a sprint tri with a 40K bike leg. However that  said the person who wins is usually very good at all 3 pursuits, I don't think you can win at top level and have a really bad discipline.