Triathlon Rio Olympics: “Nothing New Under the Sun”

Once more, the Brownlees lecturing what triathlon is about.  All out swimming, all out bicycling and easy run (just to win).

Let’s see what happened.  The fastest swimmer, Varga, took 17:18 to finish the swimming section; the last one to take the peloton was eleven seconds behind, Ben Kanute.  The Russians were unable to follow the peloton even though the three of them were within that window. The competition looked like it was over then; nine riders were together making the first pack and the Brownlees directed them to give most of the energy they could have to distance themselves one minutes and 14 seconds from the second pack.  The only one surviving the bike besides the Brownlees was Heri Schoeman.  370 watts average for that segment for the first pack would be most likely.

We do not have number regarding the triathlon Rio Olympics bike segment but we can extrapolate some power meter numbers from competitors present in the second pack.  We have written previous posts regarding this subject:

4 juil. 2014

Triathlon: How Bad the Cycling Segment Is?

 On the other hand, we have good triathletes who are on the border of qualifying for the Olympics as it is the case of Leonardo Chacón; his capacity to ride the 40k is 330-340 watts (FTP 345,http://www.leochacon.com/#skill-section). Obviously, he is going to walk if he stays with the first pack drafting because he is all-out riding the bike with that FTP.  Mario Mola has a higher wattage compared to Chacón (FTP), so he is able to run after drafting in one of the packs; same thing for Murray.  Mola is unable to pull the peloton; he uses drafting as his only option to reach the podium.

We have not changed a bit from our post above.  The second pack average power was around 330.  Leonardo was able to run after the bike the way he knows under that humidity and heat.  Mola and Murray were able to run at their best and the Brownlees just kept what they gained on the bike.

We also wrote about the Brownlees racing:

14 juin 2016

Triathlon: How should it be?

We love what we saw at Leeds.  That is how the champions want us to be; fearless and to our maximum capacity.  The Brownlees planned and executed it perfectly; Alistair waited for Johnny as a plan “B.”  Wattage around 390 average from our measures.  This was a taste for Rio.

Are we going to learn from it?  The Brownlees has had the same strategy but nobody wanted to play differently or even see the strategy.  It is not possible to increase the wattage from year to year; even Christ Froom does not improves for years, he improves regarding holding the distance with less difficulties but he is not faster.  Improving 30 watts in a year is for a junior which has a lot of margin to improve.

22 mai 2016

Triathlon Cagliari and the Bike

We know from previous competitors that when they are teenagers, they can improve from 20 to 30 watts per year if they train close to 500k a week for a 20k time trial.