He’s had some control freaks for coaches, so wanting to coach himself or have a loose group of advisors seems to be where he’s best from a psychological perspective. His best results were with Tilburs and perhaps they should rekindle things again. But, @christianlee saying him doing things his way leads to poor results also isn’t true. The results are more wonky though.
He’s had coaches even this year, Frodeno coached him for a bit, injured his rib on the swim program.
Lionel is a Lululemon sponsored athlete now and was at the Scottsdale 10k as a pacer. No shit, I walked up to someone else asking him if he was Lionel Sanders and he was like no I’m just a normy…he looked like Lionel but was about two inches taller and probably 180 pounds. But seriously a legit enough doppelganger. But then I saw where Lionel was with a line in front of him, I got my chance to chat with him and I can tell you that he’s very down to earth, actually hates the spotlight that he casts, but also seems to understand that he started all this years ago and it’s ok. But he rarely posts or comments on social, his twitter is deactivated, and he’s pretty private. Yet again realizes his responsibility in the sport.
There are more than a handful of pros that I’ve met at races that slowtwitch folks love, and most of them don’t want the attention, don’t want to talk to fans, they’re legitimately bad sports about it. Blows my mind because this sport needs them to engage for the pro side to grow.
I met Holly Lawrence once, she definitely didn’t want to engage. The complete opposite to someone like Ruth Astle; I saw her on the run course at Oceanside and cheered for her a few times as she went by. After the race SHE approached me and we talked for a bit. She is the nicest and sweetest triathlete I’ve met.
I also use to chat with Michelle Vesterby on IG and she was very nice. I met her in person at Oceanside and she was even nicer.
I mean…the last one they raced in April he beat Jelle by 3.5 minutes. Not that he would or would not beat him now. But within the last year, that’s the results.
2 Ironman Series wins, 1 3rd IM series full, 1 other IM win and a poor Kona - this was a down year. We hold Lionel to a much higher level than Kristian for instance. But…how poor are these results. Truly?
As a Lionel fan I listen to Lionel and all the things he says he did wrong this year and you know, if I applauded his results, wouldn’t that make me look incredulous?
I don’t think there is too much wrong with Lionel’s business model. Why change a ‘winning’ business strategy? He would still be one of the highest paid athletes in triathlon I suspect.
I don’t think Lionel was pleased with Kona - your words were poor results. I think LS sees his year and wants more, obviously and cracking the Kona code would be the main goal. KB had the Olympics as a goal, fell well short, had an outstanding Frankfurt and many pundants put him as nearly unbeatable for Kona and he had the time to prepare that he thought he needed and that was a disaster too. LS wasn’t peaking for Oceanside either - and I said this in another thread - JG with new coach (same as PL) may well have reached a new level. But he and LS both came into Oceanside to race and they raced. It was what it was for April.
Its funny that he seems to have come to the same conclusion 8 years later. On his look backs he is now trying to find that magic he had back then without all the dissection, distraction, and over thinking. It was around this time he had his best swims, even his best pool swim races. It was as if not knowing what the hell he was doing and racing like a dog, was really the best set up for a guy like him…
thanks for the look back, bet he would kill to be in that position once again…
There’s no money in telling the truth: It’s a long and slow process of improving yourself, step by step over the span of years. Genetics play a gigantic role, but even within your own ability it takes a long, determined build up to reach your potential.
Isn’t it possible that Lionel is doing nothing wrong, that there is more than one way to skin a cat, and that he has quite simply realized the max performance that he is capable of??
What about the other 350 or so pro triathletes registered to WTC, most of whom have never seen a pro podium, why don’t we shit on them for obviously doing everything wrong since they aren’t world champs?
When Lionel was going through a coach transition several years ago, people all over this board shat on him for jumping from coach to coach and never doing anything consistent. There were several other well known males and some females doing the same thing…and no one crushed them for it. Part of this is how public his persona is, but what about theirs? Maybe they were less polarizing, but they were public enough in triathlon that they deserved the same questioning. Dunno.
Which well known pro’s were changing coaches on a seemingly year to year basis. I’ve been around the sport a long time and can’t name many that do that.
At the same time as Lionel? Heather Jackson. There more than a few others. But they are just not as public about their coaching relationships. If you think these folks don’t change coaches all the time you’re not paying attention. Again, it’s just that Lionel has been public about things that he gets the shtick.
I pay a hell of a lot more attention in this sport than you do, I have too. Athletes don’t change coaches all the time. They obviously change coaches from time to time, but this idea that they are changing them by the season is bullshit.
As GJ’s coach, once famously told me 10 years ago, “coaches are troughs for athletes to eat from, and then they go to the next one”. (GJ has had the same tri coach for a 10+ year time frame, broken up when she moved to runnning). No duh coaches/athlete relationship are going to change. It’s the nature of the business, but this idea that top level pros out there are changing as frequently as LS has/did/does; that I don’t think is a very accurate statement.
Most athletes generally probaly stay 2-3 years with a coach/idea and then likely “change” (if you want to talk about the “average” over all the pros). I don’t know that LS actually has stayed with a coach for a 2 year period since he was originally “advised” by BS in his 1st years in the sport. It’s probaly rarer that you get 8 year relationships like what we’ve seen with Wilde/Kanute that just ended than a pro that has 2-3 coaches over that same time frame.
LS was catching shit when he finished 2nd place in IM and then within what at most 6 months had already decided for a coaching change (I think it was decided by winter he needed a new coach). That made zero sense, and anyone else in the pro ranks who would do that, especially with such a short tenure w/ the coach would catch the same “what the hell are you doing”. His biggest “issue” imo is lack of “seeing things through”; and if you think that is the pro standard, sorry bro you are the one that isn’t paying attention.
