Triathletes Seek Olympics in Remote Argentine Town Jessica Weiss for The New York Times Cesar Valdez rested on a beach after preparing for Sunday's triathlon in La Paz. Te event kicks off the 2012 qualifying season for the Summer Games in London. LA PAZ, Argentina - Manuel Huerta, a professional triathlete from Miami, is not particularly religious. But he has been praying a lot in preparation for his next race - not that he will finish first, but merely that he and his bike will survive the journey to the start. In total, 1,000 competitors are in La Paz for three days, competing in four divisions, including a youth division. Only 100 of them live in La Paz. So far, praying has not sufficed. Huerta's $5,000 Orbea Orca bike did not make the connecting flight to Buenos Aires from Miami; it arrived a day later than he did, pushing back the last leg of a 26-hour trip. At least his bus did not stall in the summer heat on the bumpy, eight-hour drive past hundreds of miles of cow pastures to La Paz. A triathlon scheduled for Sunday in the heart of this remote pueblo in northeast Argentina has drawn a stacked professional field. It kicks off the 2012 qualifying season for the Summer Games in London, the fourth Olympics in which the triathlon has been included. For those used to competing in places like Lake Placid, N.Y.; Hamburg, Germany; and Kona, Hawaii, La Paz may be the most exotic event of the year. "When I first heard there were piranhas in the river where we swim, I felt a little nervous," said Huerta, 27, who has competed in La Paz three times. But people in the town told me they are not actually the dangerous kind. Huerta is well known around town. He won the race in 2008. Another top finish this year would help his chances for claiming a spot on the United States Olympic team for the first time. The race Sunday also counts as the Pan American championship, granting double points for Olympic qualification. This has brought the best professional field to La Paz in the event's 28-year history. "I haven't heard much about La Paz," said Flora Duffy, 24, who is hoping to qualify for Bermuda's Olympic team after a disappointing performance at the 2008 Beijing Games. All I know is that it's way the heck out there and that it's going to be hot. Temperatures topped 100 degrees this week. In the afternoon, dogs slept under trees while locals fanned themselves on shaded porches or in the nearest air-conditioned room. "The course itself is not complicated," said Fernando Baez, the event's organizer since 1987. It's the heat that's the real challenge. From the town's port, athletes will be transported on cattle barges to the start, a sandy bank along the mud-colored Paraná River, the second longest river in South America. They will swim two buoyed laps, both with and against the current (1.5 kilometers, a little over nine-tenths of a mile), cycle the town nine times on bike (40 kilometers, about 25 miles) and run four mostly flat laps on city streets to the finish (10 kilometers, 6.2 miles). In keeping with tradition, residents of La Paz (population 25,000) will come out en masse to line the course. They will hang signs and flags, bang drums and set off fireworks. The city block with the best decorations will win an award. "For some reason that I am still trying to figure out," Baez said, "in the land of soccer, the people of La Paz know only triathlon." The sport here dates to the mid-1980s when the Argentine TV host Pancho Ibáñez introduced the "unique new challenge" on his hit show "El Deporte y el Hombre" ("Sport and Men"), through images of a United States Marine triathlon on a Hawaii beach. Nineteen local athletes competed in the inaugural La Paz triathlon in 1985. Since then, the sport's popularity has grown despite its high price tag. In 2005, a triathlon school opened in La Paz to coach local hopefuls. Residents study the biographies of triathletes who come through town and place bets on who will win. This year, Argentina's most famous triathlete, Oscar Galindez, will return after nine years on the Ironman circuit. Baez calls Galindez the Maradona of triathlon, in reference to Argentina's famed soccer star Diego Maradona.