Insporta’s triathlon course is complete at three levels of five sub-levels each, 1,500 questions in 150 tests. Level 1 takes a complete beginner to a first start line, level 2 is about training rather than surviving, and level 3 is about racing rather than training, including long course and the physiology underneath the rules of thumb. The rules are checked against both the World Triathlon Competition Rules and the IRONMAN Competition Rules, and the training, nutrition and physiology content against published position stands and sports-medicine reference. Every test is ten questions with four options and one correct answer.
How the triathlon curriculum is organised
Triathlon was planned at three levels, not the ten that football uses, because its subject matter is narrower and stretching it over ten levels would produce filler. The three levels carry the same names as the first three rungs of every Insporta ladder, Beginner, Elementary and Pre-Intermediate, and each has five sub-levels of ten tests. Every sub-level went through the process in How Insporta writes a test, with two features particular to triathlon: an independent fact check of the correct answer and all three wrong options against both rulebooks, because most errors found were wrong options that were quietly true; and a repetition hunt across all three levels, because the first sub-level is a survey that touches every discipline and every later one has to go deeper rather than say the same thing again.
Level 1: Beginner, first-race readiness
Level 1 takes someone from knowing nothing to being ready for a first race. Triathlon basics is the survey: the sport itself, its distances, how a race runs, each leg, transitions, kit, rules and training. Open water swimming covers what the pool does not teach: sighting, drafting, wetsuits, cold water, entries and exits, and keeping your head when it gets rough. Bike handling and safety covers cornering, descending, sharing the road, hazards, punctures, bike checks, gearing and fuelling on the move. Running off the bike covers adapting to cycling-tired legs, pacing by effort, holding form when it falls apart, hills, heat, walk-run, feet and the finish. Race week and race day covers registration and check-in, the taper, packing, setting up transition, race morning, warming up, nerves, weather and what to do when it goes wrong.
Level 2: Elementary, training and performance
Level 2 is about the principles behind a plan and the technique and sessions that make each discipline faster. Training principles: overload and adaptation, intensity distribution, periodisation, monitoring load, recovery and building a week you can repeat. Swim technique and sets: body position, the catch, the kick, stroke rate, drills, tools, set design, pacing and diagnosing your own limiter. Bike training and power: what power measures, FTP and zones, interval and long-ride design, cadence and fit, and judging whether any of it is working. Run training: easy running and why it is run too fast, the long run, threshold and interval work, injury prevention, strength and surfaces. Nutrition and hydration: daily intake, carbohydrate, protein, energy availability, race fuelling by distance, gut training, hydration, caffeine, recovery and the evidence behind supplements.
Level 3: Pre-Intermediate, racing and long course
Level 3 is about racing rather than completing. Race strategy and pacing: effort distribution by distance, the swim start, bike tactics and the rules that govern them, reading the race as it happens and reviewing it honestly afterwards. Long course racing: what changes at 70.3 and full distance, bike discipline, the long-course run, low points, course logistics and heat over many hours. Physiology: what VO2max and lactate actually are, how the energy systems overlap, economy, fatigue, heat and altitude adaptation, overtraining, autonomic monitoring and why athletes respond differently. Equipment optimisation: where speed is actually bought, aerodynamics and CdA, wheels, tyres, helmets, wetsuits, race-day setup and testing a change honestly. Peaking, recovery and injury: taper science, recovering from a race, the injuries triathletes actually get, returning to training, the off-season and building a year and a career rather than a single block.
Which sources the questions are written from
For the rules, the World Triathlon Competition Rules and the IRONMAN Competition Rules, both read in the original. Draft-zone dimensions, pass times, penalty durations and cut-off times differ between the two bodies and by race distance, so a question never states one of those numbers as universal: it teaches how the rule works and says that the athlete guide for the specific event is the authority. Content that defers to the athlete guide is correct, not incomplete. For training and nutrition, the published position stands of the ACSM, the IOC and the ISSN, with figures given as ranges. For physiology and sports medicine, the exercise-physiology reference literature, with the contested questions presented as contested. Every position that was checked, every error corrected and every claim left unresolved is listed at Triathlon fact checks.
What is deliberately out of scope
The course is complete at three levels; there is no plan for a fourth. Within it, some things are left out on purpose. Rulebook numbers that vary by event are not asked as fixed figures. Self-diagnosis is never taught: content on relative energy deficiency and overtraining points to qualified assessment, because both are diagnoses of exclusion that anaemia, thyroid disease, post-viral illness and depression can mimic. Contested science, from the central governor model to heart-rate-variability-guided training and menstrual-cycle-based training, is presented as a dispute rather than resolved. And one exception runs the other way: a safety fact about heat stroke, overdrinking, chest pain or bone stress is allowed to appear in every sub-level that can lead someone to the hazard, even though repetition is otherwise hunted down. The reasoning behind the construct is in Sport-specific knowledge, not generic brain training.
What is planned next
No new triathlon level is planned. The work from here is maintenance: re-checking the rules content against each new edition of the World Triathlon and IRONMAN rulebooks, and the nutrition and physiology content against updated position stands, and correcting a question in place when a source moves.