Jaja on french TV

Interesting piece about Jaja on French TV: his race (IM Switzerland) and training. Sorry but in French only… But yes he is going to Hawaii: http://sport.france2.fr/stade2/index-fr.php?date=2007/06/24&id_article=786

best quotes:

about swimming

  1. yes, I glide, but not fast

  2. well, 2000 swimmers together, it’s scary, you get hit, and it’s long…well, for me.

about cycling
3. the worst is you can’t ride in a group, so no one to chat with.
it’s going to be a long day

all that with a smile…he says he is going to Kona.

With a 9:12 that is a guaranteed fact.

What happened…did Jaja call Murphy’s Law to get the official Float-hammer-jog race day tactics? OK, all kidding aside a very studly debut, but with that aerobic engine, there have to be some major macro swimming flaws which can easily be corrected to get him to the 1:05 range. We need to send Jaja to a Doug Stern camp :slight_smile:

He’s so lean. Maybe he just sinks from it. I think he needs an extra 1 or 2% body fat to make him more buoyant.

Gimme a break…he had a wetsuit on in Zurich! No one sinks in a wetsuit.

you guys underestimate the specificity of sport. it would probably take a solid year of dedicated training to take 10 min off the swim, just as it took him almost 1-2 years to go from a 2:55 to 2:45 marathon (and hence a 3:11 ironman marathon).

Except that a 2.55 marathon is already reasonably fast whereas as a 1.16 swim in a wetsuit is pretty slow, not really comparable to a sub 3h marathon…
That said, his next swim is without a wetsuit…

you guys underestimate the specificity of sport. it would probably take a solid year of dedicated training to take 10 min off the swim, just as it took him almost 1-2 years to go from a 2:55 to 2:45 marathon (and hence a 3:11 ironman marathon).

I think he can take off more than 10 mins in one year for 3800m, if he swim 4-6 times per week… I had no swimming background neither any kind of aerobic sport other than playing street hockey with friends. In 8 months I went from 30mins for 1500m down to 22:30, so that’s 7:30 mins for 1500m only.

This guy has a huge engine in his interview he mentionned that he was riding 40,000km per year when pro cycling, now 8,000km in preparation for zurich, and a total of 20-25hr per week. So I think he can improve quite a bit… But my predicition for Kona will be 1:15 for his swim. I have friends that barelly made the hour barrier down in Kona and they are able to swim 53-54mins with a wetsuit. So Jaja, will improve for sure until october but without a wetsuit his time is going to be the same as today.