Triathlon History III

We have spoken about History and triathlon in the past, and we gave you some numbers. We also showed you why Simon Lessing started to lose when having won four world titles in a row before the year 1999; the then new  drafting format during the bike and his running technique were the major players.  We´ll continue with Triathlon History which should be useful; otherwise, it is (his)tory and a bunch of data together.  We also spoke about teamwork in April, 2012.  The Germans have tried teamwork with the females and worked fine in Hamburg this year.  Their runner, Anne Haugh, left the water a minute behind the pack and Svenja Bazlen was able to take her to the first pack and Haug was the winner sprinting from far.  This last time in London, Anne Haugh was a 1:30 behind after the swim and Anja Knapp was unable to take her to the first pack.  We saw that Haugh is uncapable to cut the gap by herself on a flat surface as London (perhaps not a 1:30 deficit).

Simon losing against Gaag.

16 avr. 2012

WHAT A CYBERNETIC TRIATHLON HISTORY IS

History should be written to avoid falling into a trap (See Mental Fatigue, January 25, 2012, in this blog).  I went to a conference dictated by León-Portilla, Wikipedia says: Miguel León-Portilla (born in Mexico City, February 22, 1926) is a Mexican anthropologist and historian, and a prime authority on Nahuatl thought and literature.  During the conference, he mentioned: “I found an Aztec Codices in a remote village, but it was written in a “Scribe” notebook; I asked for the original and they answered: ‘We copied the old one into this scribe. It was impossible to keep the old one’…THIS IS HISTORY.”  

 

Human beings are getting faster for centuries.  In endurance sports athletes can compete for longer than an hour above 90% of their capacity.  VO2 max should be high and according to our training.  If we train slow pace, even if our VO2 max is high we compete at a slow pace (see VO2 Max and The Second Sin, February 26, 2012, in this blog).  As part of History, Victor Plata, our friend spoke about the need of teamwork in triathlon in and out of competition.  He even proofed that it works.  We have done it with our athletes since the beginning of our team.  The better the athletes understand and feel teamwork, the better the results.  Sports and live itself have become more and more tactical.  We need a good teamwork in order to achieve our dreams.  Without teamwork Cris Boardman would not break the record for the hour cycling or Armstrong would not win seven times in a row the Tour de France.  Gregory Bateson spoke about it in the 70’s, Mind and Nature, 1979.  “Too much schooling and little education” happens in sports also.  Lack of teamwork has to do with little education.

Empirically we experimented with our athletes, and we know that 15 heart beats per minutes can be dropped by drafting after a mate biking at 40k/min on a flat surface.  This dropped in heart beats means 30-40 watts approximately on a flat surface.  That is the reason why some athletes were able to run in London even though they do not have enough biking power.  It is too risky to stay expecting that Sven Riederer, Richard Murray, Stephen Justus pull the train to catch the first pack.  Mario Mola ended up in third place at London and the rest of the ones resting on the second and third packs were able to run, positioning themselves well at the finish line.  As a historic piece, Riederer stopped after the bike in Stockholm Triathlon this year because he burned out after the bike when he tried to catch the first pack.

Aaron Royle gave some data regarding the bike at London Triathlon for elites.  He appeared to help a little to pull the pack because Alistair Brownlee was literally “herding” the first pack to keep the first pack rolling (please see minute 35 of the race in the video by the ITU) that ended up losing close to a minute (second pack was more than a minutes behind after the swim). Royle averaged 324 watts for the course, and because this is a “flat” surface, his average is for the majority of the athletes sitting on the peloton regardless of Royle´s weight. Vidal recorded 360 watts in different races on “flat” surfaces.  I have posted Vidal´s measures in previous posts in this blog.

 

We will focus on the Mexican team which I know better.  The strategy to follow in order to get someplace needs to be teamwork (see the previous post regarding London Championship).  There is a triathlete in the Mexican Team that is not allowed to participate because according to our Federation, he is unable to follow the leaders in the water; however, he has done it in the past and has been able to place himself 25^th in a the Worlds Championship that took place before the 2008 Olympics.  He won the age group category at London riding faster than the elites the 40k in a time trial format.  He could be the perfect domestique for Grajales. 

It appears that winning will belong to teams or to superathletes like the Brownlees or Gomez.  A real team is needed to counterbalance these superathletes and not to expect that Riederer, Murray and the like pull the train to have the chance to be in the top ten.

1	Francisco	Serrano Plowells	MEX		01:44:48	00:09:47	00:02:41	00:57:00	00:02:35	00:32:48
2	Charlie	Graham Brown	GBR		01:48:25	00:10:01	00:02:23	00:59:58	00:02:27	00:33:37
3	Danny	Russell	GBR		01:48:40	00:10:13	00:02:43	01:01:06	00:02:42	00:31:58