Nice interview with Mr. Lessing. My only complaint is that it was too short. Can’t wait to see him in IM competition. Athens?? What’s he got to prove to anyone at that distance? Nothin’, that’s what.
my own view? he should bag athens and start ironmanning right now. you’ve got your confirmed short coursers, the guys who do the ITU stuff for a living, and then there’s macca, waldo, simon, spencer, ryan bolton, etc., who’ve just “moved on.” there are a variety of reasons why athens is just a problematic chase for guys like that. stuff that has nothing to do with their abilities.
i’d have interviewed him longer, but frankly i was sheepish about interviewing him at all, because lisa was already a day overdue. but i thought i’d better get it done now or it might be awhile.
Dan, I’ll take a humorous issue with your title to the interview. I, for one, am glad to see someone from my age group squashing the upstarts a bit. And I’m glad he’s not up there with you and the Big 4 in age. I like his approach to the sport and hope he continues to take it to places it hasn’t been yet. He’s certainly got the class to pick up where your tri-generation left off. In an age of specialists, its good to see someone who has the talent and the ability to race the whole spectrum of triathlon.
Great interview - like you said a rare chance with arguably the best triathlete in the world - ever??
I’m too young to remember Mark and Dave, tho ive read about them in Bob Babbits wicked new book (highly recommended) but I do think as soon as Simon turns to Iron (and i agree with you, he should do that now, but i guess Sydney has left him with unfinished business) he will dominate…
I think it was Dave Scott himself who reckons Simon can run under 2.40 in hawaii…and he should know right!
The real interesing question for me, a brit is whether Simon will race the Life Fitness race… he has a long contract to race London Tri each year - worth alot of money I think - which will he choose!
Sam
Nice interview Slowman - I remember doing some swimming with Simon back in Durban, South Africa when he was just getting going at the age of 17 or so - even then if I remember correctly he was racing sub 18 minutes for a Long Course 1500m swim. What I really enjoy about him is his friendly approach to life - I am a few years older than him however back then he still kindly took time out to advise and assist me purchase my first ever bike - a peugot…all round a wonderful man and hopefully he now gets recognition he deserves.
“he has a long contract to race London Tri each year - worth alot of money I think - which will he choose!”
i didn’t ask him about this. but after alcatraz, my suspicion is one of two things will happen. he’ll either pass on london to do life time, or if london’s pro race is at midday or in the afternoon, he’ll do both. i believe life time is saturday, london is sunday. no way he could make it if the pro start is in the morning, but i’ll bet he’ll try to double if the flights work out.
The london pros will start in the morning. The pros, along with age groupers who have proven results sub-2:30, ride through central london. Everyone else rides a loop course on the east side. The central-london waves will all be starting before 09:00 Sunday.
Dan,
Agreed that in theory going straight to IMH and forgetting about Athens makes sense for Simon. However, the reality is that should he win in Athens the media publicity from that would be huge compared to the hit a win at IMH gets. IMH is a big race - the biggest in our sport, but it still falls way behind the profile that one gets by winning a Gold Medal at the Olympic Games.
In Canada, in 2000 it was interesting because we had a win at the inaugural triathlon at the Sydney Olympic Games couertesy of Simon Whitfield and a win at IMH courtesy of Peter Reid. Both were outstanding performances by great athletes. The main difference was that people in the street were talking about Simon’s win in the days and weeks afterwards. This was not the case with Peter’s win at IMH that year. It did get some coverage, but it was minimal. At the risk of being crass, I’m guessing that the indirect financial windfall for Whitfield was significantly greater for the Olympic win than for Reid’s direct winnings at Hawaii. Futhermore, there is the world-wide prestige factor of being an Olympic Champion. In many quarters that is the numero uno sporting achievement, despite the recently tarnished and tawdry image of the IOC and the Olympic games themselves. If you are an Olympic Champion you get invited to just about everything. If you win IMH there is a huge profile WITHIN the sport of triathlon but I suspect a somewhat smaller profile outside of the sport.
So for Simon Lessing, who does have legitimate credentials to contend in Athens next year, going to the Olympic Games and winning could be huge. Of course, given the nature of ITU style racing it is also pretty risky. But if he wins in Athens he could then go on to become the first to win the two biggest events in triathlon - The Olympic Triathlon and IMH. If he does not win in Athens he will still go on to be a feared and formidable force and possibly a dominant player at IMH.
“the reality is that should he win in Athens the media publicity from that would be huge compared to the hit a win at IMH gets”
publicity? maybe. money? i don’t know. simon whitfield made a big payday with one or two non-endemics, but partially (maybe?) because canada was lean in olympic medals. GB is not likely to be.
in general a career as a kona winner would fare better financially, i’d guess. part of that is also the difference between everything else ITU versus IM and the classics. greg bennett is off and on again #1 in the “world rankings” and i don’t believe he has much of anything in terms of sponsorships, while waldo and macca do very well by virtue of their abandonment of an exclusive schedulie of ITU races.
did brigitte mcmahan reap a large benefit? is she making as much or more than her countryman natascha badmann? it would be an interesting question.
i guess i don’t think simon should bag athens now. but what if he’d started doing kona back on 2001?
dan, re: the payout from winning in kona, do you have any insight to why tim d wasn’t sponsored after his initial win at hawaii? it didn’t appear that that had changed at wildflower. his clothing was noticably void of any big graphics. I have a hard time believing that this is because he’s being too picky. Maybe the first 6 months he was holding out, but after a year and a half, it makes me wonder if he isn’t attractive to the sponsoring companies for some reason.
macca’s charisma (and big mouth!) puts him in a different class to the sponsors I imagine.
“I have a hard time believing that this is because he’s being too picky”
i heard that as well. but i only heard that third-hand, and perhaps it was more a case of an overly picky agent. to me, tim’s eminently bankable as a promotional property. it’s a mystery to me why he doesn’t have a very nice deal with a large, non-endemic company, or a footwear or apparel company.
i think one problem is the abandonment of triathlon by nike and the other footwear companies, saucony excepted. NB, adidas, reebok and nike have either been invisible in american triathlon, or they haven’t done a good job of making their investments visible. when footwear snubs its nose at triathlon, that’s a big potential sponsor category that’s vacant.
but speaking of simon, that’s what happened to him. nike europe dropped him, and nike U.S. has done nothing to replace mark allen. there was a time when allen, liz downing, simon, and kenny souza were all big nike athletes concurrently. now, there’s nothing that i can see that nike’s doing in the U.S. (maybe they’re doing, i just don’t see it).
seems weird because everything I see would indicate that triathlon is growing quite rapidlly. you’d think that would be when the sponsors would show back up. maybe the growth is more of a grass-roots thing (danskin, etc) and the sponsors feel that the newbies aren’t really following the pro scene.
Dan,
Good point - we are pretty lean for Olympic Champions here in Canada, so when an athlete does win an Olympic Gold Medal as Simon Whitfield did in Sydney and others such as Donovan Baily(track), Marnie McBean(rowing), Alex Bauman(swimming) have in the past. . the media coverage is substantial and they are hailed as heros. It’s a miracle that we win anything given the meagre public and private support for these sports in Canada - but that is a whole seperate discussion.
As for Lessing in Athens, if he competes for the UK then he will have to not only compete on the playing field, which is a given, but he will also have to compete in the media with Paula Radcliffe who has definately become the darling of the british sports media - and rightly so!
So winning in Athens may be moot for for Lessing now that I think about it more clearly. Still, should he win he would then be the first to possibly win the Olympic Games Triathlon and IMH. The only other person who could do this over the short-term would be the other Simon - and I dobn’t see him jumping up to the longer races anytime soon.
from the slowtwitch discreet network of roving corrrespondents…
Karla Marie Lessing was born on the 11th of June 2003 at 11h20 am. she weighed in at just under 8 pounds and is doing well.
You might be intersested to note that in the UK, we are not awash with Gold medals, and all winners get a hell of a lot of coverage - including pistol shooting, modern pentathlon, sailing etc.
Before Sydney, Lessing was on TV a lot, with extended inteviews. Sydney tri was live on BBC, with Simon as main draw. Since then, triathlon on network tv (BBC) is growing. Commonwealth Games last year, this year I think London is on live. Ironman in contrast has almost zero mainstream coverage up to now. ITU/Olympics has quite strong UK representatives. Women also feature, with Jodie Swallow predicted for big things.
UK anyway, Simon would be much higher profile to stay where he is until post Athens. If he wins and then moves up, would likely pull UK ironman interest with nim.
" Ironman in contrast has almost zero mainstream coverage up to now."
i would suspect one reason for that is that the brits have never had anyone up there in the standings, and because they don’t have an IM race on their soil.
perhaps south africa might be a better example. there’s a current hot guy, conrad stoltz, and then there are two expatriates, paula and simon. i would suspect paula is the better known and higher revered of the two.
and then there’s NZ, where there’s erin (all distances, but perhaps best known for nice, zofingen and kona wins) and NZ has more recently had some world leading short coursers. erin is a goddess in NZ, the others, well, not quite at that level of reverence (yet).
i think if anyone builds a career at winning something big, the media and accolades will follow. zack, leder, hellriegel, and the ironman-distance germans are WAAAY more prominent than germany’s short coursers, but germany has never had short coursers who compare with their IM stars.
hard to say what would be the case in the UK if it had both its own IM race, and its own IM winner.
If I’m not mistaken they are 3/4 of the way there, with the Half Ironman UK(an M-dot 1/2) and Spencer Smith(IMF champion).
“If I’m not mistaken they are 3/4 of the way there, with the Half Ironman UK(an M-dot 1/2) and Spencer Smith(IMF champion).”
well, with the half they’re halfway there 
the spencer thing, that’s emblematic of the issue. between spence and simon you’ve got AT LEAST 8 world championships, one short course junior, 6 senior, and one long course (maybe more, did simon win a junior?).
but no world IM titles.
Scotland, the most important part of UK;-), has got Bella Comerford who won IMFla last year, breaking run record and is at Kona for first time this year.
Indicative of IM block here is that I never saw her IM win outside of 220 Magazine. She’s long distance, focused.
UK half sold out and probably full distance next year.
perhaps south africa might be a better example. there’s a current hot guy, conrad stoltz, and then there are two expatriates, paula and simon. i would suspect paula is the better known and higher revered of the two.
Dan - Outside of the Triathlon world in SA Conrad is probably the only one of the 3 with any kind of main stream recognition - and this is only due to his strong bike showing at the Olympics - his recent outstanding victories at Xterra and in non drafting US racing is limited to a few knowledgable triathletes. Neither Simon nor Paula are known to the “person on the street” despite their legendary status within the sport. Triathon down there is really struggling to establish itself to the point where as you know IM Africa has fallen off the calander due to lack of sponsorship. Talented athletes like Raynard Tissink (IM Korea 2002 Winner, 4th IM Brazil 2002 4th IM Florida 2002, 6th in Utah 2003) really battle to get any kind of sponsorship at all. This is sad as the country has a history of excellent endurance athletes and sports like Cycling and Ultra Marathon running continue to grow (Cape Augus Cycle tour closes at 40 000 athletes - 1 day 110 odd km race while Ultras like Comrades (90km) and Two Oceans (56km) have 13 to 15 000 athletes)