Yes, absolutely.

I'll speak to paratriathlon, since that's what I know best. The Tokyo Paralympics in 2020 will include paratriathlon. Visually impaired (VI) athletes who compete in paratriathlon use a tandem bicycle during the second leg of the race.

Choosing a guide is part luck, part strategy for the elite VI paratriathletes of world. On one hand, it's fairly limited who's eligible to guide. Professional triathletes and cyclists are not allowed to guide in ITU paratriathlon competition, which helps level the playing field a bit. The problem is that guides must be faster than their VI athletes since guides have to maintain the same pace on top of communicating directions and other race details. And the guide has to be the same gender and represent the same country, so the best VI athletes have pretty limited guide options.

Next comes strategy. If there are multiple guide options, assuming they are all available to race, the VI athlete should choose the guide who is the fastest at cycling subject to being sufficiently fast at swimming and running. Basically, the guide should be going <85% max effort on the swim and run so she has energy left to focus on guiding. But on the bike, she should be going ALL OUT. The bike is where the guide can make a substantial impact on the result of the race. Every bit of effort on the bike helps the pair finish faster, so it should be the guide's goal to drain her legs during the bike portion of the race.

I've found that most of the elite VI athletes' guides are recently “retired” pros (i.e. let their licenses expire) or Ironman pros, who are not barred from guiding. Tim Don is a well-known Ironman pro who will be guiding a British paratriathlete in the 2020 Paralympics.

In my case, my athlete asked me to be his guide because my best event is cycling - good enough to hold a candle to many pro triathletes - yet I'm not a pro because my run is comparatively slow. Luckily, I'm just fast enough of a swimmer and runner to guide him. Plus the two of us get along really well and enjoy racing together, which is important too :)

^ Kyle and me training at the Colorado Springs Olympic Training Center. Check out Kyle's blog, he's as gifted a writer as he is an athlete!