Here is a quote from this article…I must say this is all very cool and I think any of us can absolutely relate with the motivations even though we’ve never really won anything athletically of real magnitude such as her Olympic Gold:
So why is she competing in her debut Ironman now? Easy. Because she can. Because it’s a challenge. Because it’s fun and all her training partners are going to be there. Should she, or any other competitor on the start line need any more reason? Absolutely not. As for the heavies who want to put the pressure on about how ‘you need to start to get serious now because you’ll miss your qualifying points’, they are completely missing the point. You’re talking to someone who had not just the courage, but freedom of thought to compete in a half Ironman 13 days before winning the Olympics. If you think she’s going to blink over this you’re sadly mistaken. As for the race in Cozumel itself. Is she ready? Training-wise not even close. She’s spent the year running, not riding. But that’s also beside the point. Like most other age-group athletes Nicola goes into this race under-prepared but with a smile on her face and an apprehension in her heart about whether she’s got what it takes to complete an Ironman. We will see the answer to that .
spirig is a total star, and i really do hope she knocks it out of the park. i’ve got such admiration for the athletes who race across distances/formats, these days.
now, let me also be a party pooper. you know i really love your contributions here, dev, and still owe you a beer in ottawa one of these days, but i get frustrated when i see sutton’s name. i think this is a huge and ugly blind spot for triathlon. swimming has recently been under the microscope; the outside magazine article got lots of traction here and (rightly) generated a lot of discussion. but why aren’t we turning the lens back on ourselves? why is a guy with sutton’s past still occupying the highest echelons of our sport, and still being widely consulted by our leading publications?
I wanted to just focus on the Nicola IM attempt and what was said, rather than the background of the guy who said it. I think it is possible to separate the guys past from what he says in the context of this race, but I know some never will. His past has been beaten to death, and there are several hundred threads that address that. I actually wanted to focus on Nicola and his observations of her motivations.
I wanted to just focus on the Nicola IM attempt and what was said, rather than the background of the guy who said it. I actually wanted to focus on Nicola and his observations of her motivations.
The background of the person can’t be seperated from his observations, not when that person is a coach who has been convicted of sexually abusing a child he was coaching. The fact that this subject has been beaten to death on slowtwitch doesn’t change that. Glossing over it is wrong. I’m sure O.J. Simpson would make an interesting football comentator.
I wanted to just focus on the Nicola IM attempt and what was said, rather than the background of the guy who said it. I actually wanted to focus on Nicola and his observations of her motivations.
The background of the person can’t be separated from his observations, not when that person is a coach who has been convicted of sexually abusing a child he was coaching. The fact that this subject has been beaten to death on slowtwitch doesn’t change that. Glossing over it is wrong. I’m sure O.J. Simpson would make an interesting football comentator.
Fine…I can’t personally change which athletes sign up with which coaches. I’ll let you guys fight it. I’m not a black and white type of person, and can respect the ability of someone in one aspect of life, while finding the same person entirely disgusting in another arena. I am able to turn my brain on and off relative to the same person depending on what we are talking about.
Do I think Brett deserves to coach? No. But given that he does coach, I’d be an idiot to deny that he really gets a lot out of a many athletes. Not all, but many. It’s like a banker who put his pen in the office ink pot. He might be a brilliant banker and I can admire how he jacks up stock portfolios while hating what he does with the women in his office. Does he deserve to be a banker in the corporate world? No. Does he get results? Yes. Someone else has to kick that person out from practicing banking. Brett is kicked out of practicing coaching in Australia and from what i understand the US, which is why he is based out of Switzerland-Phillipines-Jeju Island Korea-Cozumel and other areas that will let him practice coaching.
Unfortunately for us, it is a free world. I am yet to hear of Brett doing anything bad in a few decades with the microscope over him constantly. Maybe the man in reformed. At least one of his athletes came on this thread and said how awesome he is. Maybe he is part of the Sutto cult or maybe he is objective and knows way more about the man than you and I here on the internet.
All this to say, he’s gotten a lot out of Nicola and continues to, and seems to understand what makes here tick and motivated. Kind of unconventional to let your top ITU gun race a half IM before the Olympic Games gold medal run, but it worked!!!
Eimear Mullan… remember that name. Can’t run like Nicola, but she sure can bike…
Eimear is a GOOD biker in terms of womens elite racing. Nicola is one of the all time greats.
For 5 years she played a big part in peoples race strategies at ITU level, if you did’nt make the front pack the next question was always ‘Is Nicola behind me?’
If Brett is putting her on the start line I doubt anyone else will get a look in.
Give it a rest dude. it’s been debated, hashed about, written about for years.
Is/was he a scumbag in the past? Sure.
is he one of the top 2-3 tri coaches in the world. Yes he is.
No need to keep rehashing shit that was brought up years ago and turning a thread about one thing into a thread about something else. Start your own Sutton bashing thread or use the search function and chime in on those.
Give it a rest dude. it’s been debated, hashed about, written about for years.
Is/was he a scumbag in the past? Sure.
is he one of the top 2-3 tri coaches in the world. Yes he is.
No need to keep rehashing shit that was brought up years ago and turning a thread about one thing into a thread about something else. Start your own Sutton bashing thread or use the search function and chime in on those.
Eimear Mullan… remember that name. Can’t run like Nicola, but she sure can bike…
Eimear is a GOOD biker in terms of womens elite racing. Nicola is one of the all time greats.
For 5 years she played a big part in peoples race strategies at ITU level, if you did’nt make the front pack the next question was always ‘Is Nicola behind me?’
If Brett is putting her on the start line I doubt anyone else will get a look in.
Yeah, Brett has been talking down Nicola’s IM cycling fitness though. Don’t know if he’s being truthful or playing games.
And here I thought we were going to make it through 2014 without a Sutton thread. Even though I’m one of the first to jump on Sutton when he or someone else discusses how he’s a legend of coaching and the legacy he’s left–that’s not what this article is at all.
Instead, it’s a really great insight into a really great athlete. These are the kinds of stories I want to see more of in triathlon. Glimpses into how the athletes tick, what motivates them, what their personal lives are like. This interests me much more than endless stories of training volume and the gear they use.
I often criticize Sutton for making everything about him. He didn’t do that here–he made the story almost entirely about Nicola (or at least the part quoted in the article was). So let’s celebrate her and what she’s made out of the sport and her life, and as an aside give Brett a pat on the back for hiring an editor and checking his ego a bit.
That was my intent. Nicola sounds like the ultimate age grouper that everyone else wants to be…smart in her professional life outside of tri and by all account successful, a family person, parent and ripping it up in racing with the best in the world. We can all admire that for sure!!! Good luck to Nicola in Cozumel this weekend and count me in the fan club…especially the part about cranking off a half IM 2 weeks out from the Olympic gold medal. So much for conventional tapers!!!
