Triathlon and Trump

I asked one of my patients from New Jersey if she was going to vote for Trump after his visit to Mexico, she was born Republican.  She said: “No, he owes us money from a development in New Jersey where he never paid contractors because he declared bankruptcy.  He made his money that way.  He is not a producer, he just knows the system.” In our team we work on education 100% of the time in order to overcome old patterns of behavior.  Working in the system because we know its flaws does not help to accomplish championships; the opposite, our ability to struggle to improve gets hampered.  The athletes live from the system but do not accomplish anything as athlete as is the case of the majority of the Mexican triathletes.  Our system is doomed to failure since the get-go when “marcas mínimas” is considered before any real triathlon competition.  Triathletes prepare themselves for the “marcas mínimas” instead of triathlon.

Let´s get back to business. Summer Cook won the triathlon at Edmonton.  She comes from a swim and run program (born 1991).  She struggled to keep with the first pack and at times she was unable to draft, even Barrie Shepley noticed it.  She has improved her biking to be there but still far from being skilled or able to tolerate an Olympic distance triathlon.  Gwen Jorgensen has been the only able to do the jump from the program of swim and run to triathlon through the recruitment programs in the USA; and only females ventured long enough to do the jump.  Alan Webb tried:

 “My original dream was to be an Olympic swimmer.”

Webb was in eighth grade when Athens was awarded the 2004 Olympics, and his sister Lisa brought him back a T-shirt from her visit to Greece. At the time, he wore it with the dream of competing in the Games—as a swimmer. Growing up in Reston, Va., he swam on a club team starting at age 11. He excelled in the pool, but his talent in running was undeniable, and juggling the two sports became too much by the time he was a sophomore in high school. He had to make a choice, and that choice was running.

“It was tough at the time—to give up that journey,” Webb says. “It was maybe a false hope at that point to think I could be an Olympic swimmer, but to give that up to be a runner … I think I made the right choice. I had instant success and I realized, ‘Whoa—I’m not good, I’m really good.”

http://triathlon.competitor.com/2015/03/features/runner-interrupted-alan-webbs-new-olympic-dream_113062#5BVd5DVQCsughMgv.99

There were some others who used to train running as part of the swimming program and became acceptable Olympic distance triathletes over the years; such is the case of Andy Potts.  Potts did not improve his running to top levels.  A swimming-running program is not the solution to have top triathletes.  As in the case of the USA, they do not have room (time after finishing College) to improve either biking or running to finish an Olympic distance triathlon at the top.  Gwen Jorgensen is good regardless of her background, unfortunately, publicity will use her to sell recruitment from these programs.  Well, where did I leave Trump? Trump is an expert in using the system the same way.