Australia has a great climate for year-round training and endurance sports are popular there, so it's no surprise that they turn out some great athletes. I'm sure that if Americans were as interested in running, swimming, and biking as they are in football, basketball, and golf we would be the world's triathlon superpower.

The real mystery is how Canada churns out such great endurance athletes. Neither the climate nor the national sport (hockey) is conducive to breeding runners, swimmers, and cyclists, but look at all the great triatheletes and cyclists that come from up North. It must be something in the air up there.

"The real mystery is how Canada churns out such great endurance athletes. Neither the climate nor the national sport (hockey) is conducive to breeding runners, swimmers, and cyclists, but look at all the great triatheletes and cyclists that come from up North. It must be something in the air up there."

Indeed, it is amazing the numbers of top world class enduarnce athletes that Canada does produce. The sad but real story is that we have no real system for athlete development in this country. Funding for athlete and sport development from the govenment was never great and was cut dramatically many years ago and help from the private sector with sponsorship is meagre at best. So indeed it is rather extraordinary that we can produce athletes such as, Simon Whitfield, Lori Bowden, Peter Read(Triathlon); Roland Green, Alyson Sydor, Jeanvieve Jeanson, Michal Barry(Cycling); Beckie Scott(XC-Skiing) and a few others. My thinking is that these are just extraordinarily talented and dedicated athletes who have actually thrived inspite of very little support, help or direction from their country. If you look at the depth charts in a number of enduarnce sports in Canada right now we are in the middle of a historical slump and the situation could be described as somewhat pathetic. For example in distance running - their may be only one man, Kevin Sullivan( 1500m runner) who will even qualify for the Olympic Games this summer.

The good news is that Ottawa has suddenly realized that spending on sports development IS important and my sense is that there is a big rethink going on about this. Unfortunately, success in enduarnec sports does not come overnight, not even next year, so it may be a few more years before we see some reallly positive results.

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Fleck...why does Canada have so many good triathletes. I think it goes back a long long way. First of all, we have always had a healthy scene of races from local to international calibre going back into the 80's. Without many races, no one has something to get their "feet wet with". Pretty well every town in this country of any size has had a tri for the past 15 to 20 years. So people like you or I were able to get into tris back in 1985 or so and race every weekend all summer. People like Reid and Bowden got into the sport at local races because "they were there". We've had great international calibre racing in Canada since the 1980s. When you have the best in the world come and race on your home soil, you tend to get better. Look what happened here with speedskating. Ever since we got the Olympic Oval, our speedskaters suddenly got fast. Coincidence or surprise ? I think not. If you have the facilities (in the case of tris, race venues, the results will eventually com). Aside from Ironman Canada, we've had ITU World's in Muskoka and Montreal, and several ITU World Cups in Cornerbrooke, Toronto and Edmonton. Hey even before the ITU, the last "unofficial world's" were in Kelowna, with guys like Pigg, Richard Wells, Glah and others duking it out !

Aside from race venues, we had podium success out of the chute. First came the Puntous twins, who raised the bar for all women that followed: Carolina Heinz, JoAnne Ritchie, Carol Montgomery, Heather Fuhr, Lori Bowden, Lisa Bentley, Jill Savege all in successsion. When you are chasing the best in the best in the world you just get faster or you don't make the national teams, or rank in the country. On the men's side besides Reid and Whitfield, there are no truly elite pros that are at a factor to win any "A" race on the planet today. I believe Canada just got lucky with these two. Yes, we have plenty of guys who can finish top 5 at one of the Ironman races worldwide, but no one besides Reid can podium at Roth/Germany or Hawaii when the field is stacked and no one but Whitefield has a hope at any ITU World Cup.

The Aussies are plain fast. They have a system, the climate and a strong heritage in endurance sport!

Quite simply - We live in the best country in the world !!

The climate to train in over here is awesome. Sure in the winter months you might have to put full gloves on and a long sleeve cycle top whilst riding, but unless you live in the High country it usually doesn't get below 10 deg. C (50 F), Hell, you can even swim outside all year round.

The major reason to why we are so good is our outdoors life style. The vast majority of Aussie kids can swim by the age of 6 - this is pretty much a pre-requisite as 80%+ of the population lives by the sea. Our Tri clubs identify with all this and regularly have Junior races. My daughter is 9 and has done 10 tri's already ! And thats because she wants to - no parental pressure here !!

Too summarise all this, a combination of climate, outdoors lifestyle and nurturing of our juniors, breeds a very succesful formula.

And NO, we don't get our fitness from chasing Kangaroos out of our back yards, just emu's - they are quicker so therefore fairer game ;-)

Kangaroo steaks.................and lots of em'!

First Off ... clever name.

Secondly ... I cannot remember where, but I read an article that stated that Australia had triathlon training centers set up all over the place. In toher words you could find a pool to swim in, trails to run/ride almost everywhere.

Great point about the outdoor living. I rarely see young kids playing outside (except the skaterz) and it is depressing.

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-- Every morning brings opportunity;
Each evening offers judgement. --

Where do I start? Brain dump here...

Tri-clubs popping up everywhere, races every weekend over summer, plenty of open beaches, open water swims throughout summer, accommodating drivers allow you to ride hassle free on "their" roads, media coverage, plenty of current and successful tri "idols" to act as role models for the kids, state and national programs that identify and nuture talent, Learn to Swim programs and Little Athletics for the kids, relatively warm winters (c.f. the Northern Hemisphere), active and healthy culture (although it is a worry that our child obesity levels are approaching the higher end of the spectrum)...

Just scratching the surface.

On the other hand, we could do with borrowing Slowman, Tom D and Mr Tibbs for a year or so just to help things along...

"accomodating drivers"??? huh???
I guess NOT on the Gold Coast...and most of my aussie mates do not agree either...
On the gold coast, it was 3-4 close calls every ride...
here in west TX, it's one every 6 months...

Can only speak for Melbourne folk on that one I am afraid. Our track along Beach Road is usually pretty good, apart from copping a fair bit of ribbing at 7am on a Saturday morning from revellers leaving their fave bars who can't understand our penchant for lyrca...

Don't worry dude, it's just the sun effecting there nocturnal eccie laced minds ;-)

Heh heh. Bit of a worry though when you come around one of the corners and have to swerve to miss a couple of guys sitting an laughing (at what?!?!) in the middle of the road. Still, each to their own.

My fellow aussies have given good reasons regarding tri's but I think it is sport in general. If you have a look at sports in general no other country matches our international results in terms of per capita. There is only 20 million of us (and nearly 1 million work or live overseas) so when you start looking at results based on this number we obviously love our sport. It's so in-grained in our culture and along with both the opportunities and the location it adds up.

In regards to tri's the swimming focus on our kids at an early age and at a high percentage leads to the pool/river/beach being a very comfortable place for us. Our kids ride bikes all over the place, as it is generally very safe for them to do it - with only 5 or 6 cities over the million population mark it means that it isn't too congested for them to do so and we don't shoot each other like you guys do.

The outdoor lifestyle give kids the chance to run.

Provide the opportunity through many swimming, little athletic, cycling and tri clubs and it all comes together.

So sell your big home for those US dollars come on down and buy the same thing for half the price (Sydney getting pricey though !), invest the balance, get into our safer culture and better on average climate, be prepared to be called a 'seppo' until we accept you ( and please don't tell us that it is bigger and better in Texas etc ) and have some aussie fun.

Oh, we don't like loud seppo's - but you only find them overseas not in the states from my experience - must have to be loud to get a passport !

No one's yet mentioned the Australian Institute of Sport.

Just to prevent the Aussies here from getting too big-headed, I think it's about time to remind them who won the Rugby World Cup. :-)

Rugby what?? No idea what you are talking about.... :)

Two words. Robertson and Snowsill!!!

Been there, won that - twice I think & it didn't cost us 64 million pound !

Last time the Pommies won a team world championship was soccer in 1966 so we are happy to let em have the rugby.

It was said that we are sore losers but you generally are when it doesn't happen much !

I have to agree with everything you said, mate, but for the bike training. Bike training in Australia is too freaky dangerous. And there are not that many roads and possibilities compared to where I live (Switzerland).

But for running and especially swimming, it is as best as can be I think.

P.S. For your info, I'm married to a Canberra girl and have bike experience on the OZ roads.

Dev,

Excellent points. In triathlon specifically, we have been very lucky in Canada that in the sports short history, we have always had an athlete or two who was at or near the top of the game, short and long and in both sexs.

However, until quite recently, there was really no formalized structure in place in the country to recognize talent, get them matched up with good coachs and good training and most importantly get some dollars flowing in from the public and private sector.

Indeed, in Simon's case, that gold medal in Sydney came about almost exclusivly as a result of his dedication, talent, commitment and of those around him. As I seem to recall, he was living out of the trunk of his car in 1999 - less than a year before the Olympic games!

Also, our recent run of great Ironman distance success with Peter Reid, Lori Bowden, Heather Fuhr and Lisa Bentley has come about again, outside of any formalized structure/support within the country to develop and train top talent. These people have done it on their own for the most part. If there is someone to thank, it would be Graham/Mitch Fraser and Co. and their sponsors( Subarau etc. .) who have for 15 plus years been putting on outstanding races in and outside Canada where these athletes could showcase their talent and support themselves professionally.

Now, I have been indirectly dumping on triathlons internal sports structure and administarion and I don't want to do that because we have had some great people( Bill Hallet et al) doing some outstanding and thankless work behind the scenes for a very long time to get triathlon recognized and legitimized for public/govenment funding. However, the sport is still so new that it's been very tough to get program recognition( although IOC inclusion and Simons' medal did a world of good) AND as I pointed out in my previous post, sport funding of ALL sports has been cut back significantly over the last 15 years and is only now starting to ramp up again. I am optimistic for the future. We did very well when there was no support/structure, I can only imagine how good we will be when all the right and good things are in place.

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Best country!? I dunno... I saw a show on the Discovery channel about the wildlife in Australia. How do you get two steps beyond your front door without being killed by some poisonous spider, or ants, or crocodiles, or caterpillers, or wasps, or sea snakes or Great White sharks, or... - you get the point. If I had to worry about any of those things on my training ride, I would definately be fast! Not much more than cows where I live.

-kb

Australians are so fast, but their governing body is NUTS! Why would they leave Walton and Jones, two of the best and most consistent short course racers in the world off the Olympic team? Jones had a silver in Sydney, won the athens test race, and 3rd at worlds this year. Walton wins or podiums on just about any race he enters. Is it because they shun drafting or ITU? Oh, and they leave the current World Champion off the team? I hope the US doesnt do something stupid like this and leave Lindquist off the Olympic team. Would Canada leave Whitfield off the team? Will the Olympics will have the best triathletes in the World? Another Argument that Kona is the True pinnacle of Triathlon.

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OK, the Oz selectors may be nuts, but I think the ITU is nuts if the previous year's world champion does not get an automatic slot to the Olympic games. ie. If the Aussie women had 3 "country slot", they should now get 4 so the Olympics has the reigning World Champ in the field. This is really bad for the sport. Some person, ranked 75th on the ITU points chart from Papua New Guineau (no offence, but not a tri powerhouse) can get in based on how the slots are allocated, but the World Champ does not. Truely sad.

"OK, the Oz selectors may be nuts, but I think the ITU is nuts if the previous year's world champion does not get an automatic slot to the Olympic games. ie. If the Aussie women had 3 "country slot", they should now get 4 so the Olympics has the reigning World Champ in the field. This is really bad for the sport. Some person, ranked 75th on the ITU points chart from Papua New Guineau (no offence, but not a tri powerhouse) can get in based on how the slots are allocated, but the World Champ does not. Truely sad."

A few observations:

1. Leaving Ms. Jones off the team may be controversial, but not any more so than leaving off someone (Ms. Seear) who just beat the snot out of her in the two races designated as Olympic selection events.

2. Not everyone makes the Olympics - and that's the way it has always been. It's not what you've DONE or how good you WERE - it's doing it when it counts. The Aussie athletes knew what races counted, and Ms. Seear rose to the occasion. Can you say Dan O'Brien?

3. The three American women will almost certainly be ranked one-two-three in the world when the Olympics rolls around . . . but unless they perform in the three U.S. trials races, they won't be in Athens. It is really the same system as the heats for the 10,000 meter run. Doesn't matter how dominant someone like Paul Tergat or Paula Radcliffe might have been in the years leading up to the Games - if they don't make it through the heats, they don't run in the final. In other words, the ultimate in equal treatment - do it when it counts or go home.

4. Who, precisely, are the "reigning" world champs? Right now, it's Snowsill and Robertson . . . but there is another world championship in 2004 (May 9 in Madeira). By then, 2003 will be nothing more than history. NOTE: Both "reigning" world champs WERE in fact on the starting line in Sydney (Marceau and Hackett), and I'll give you a dollar to a dozen donuts that the same will be true in Athens.

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Lew

Going back to the sporting lifestyle and the profile of tri...

Last night I was vegging in front of the TV here in Canberra watching some awful US reality crap, when the ads came on, including one showing people doing a triathlon, finishing with the logo of a triathlon organisation and the exhotation to "Get out and enjoy yourself" or something similar.

MachV you forgot a couple of them.....the box jellyfish and blue ringed octopus.



Two word describe why wee're good at sport



"the shire"

What's "the shire"?

Only one I know of is Sutherland?