yes, but the main difference is the format of the competition...until last year it was a time trial race with the 3 members of each team swimming together (like time trials in cycling), now we have a real relay with 4 members (2 men + 2 women) for each team...
and that makes it a lot more spectacular...I'd even say that this event should be put into the Olympic program...and it would make a lot more sense than most of the latest additions (Judo team event included, just to talk about mixed gender team events)...
however, going back to the races of this first week at Balaton Lake, pretty disappointing results for Italy until now...all of our athletes definitely underperformed, if compared to this season's regular World Cup series...
and especially in the men's Olympic distance we are really behind the best, we need someone else rather than this group of guys, who are good but not enough for the individual medals...
and I'm not sure that taking Paltrinieri in this kind of events would be the right idea...