Observations on the Austrian National Triathlon Team
 

17 members of the Austrian National Olympic Triathlon Team and 2 coaches have been here training for the past 6 weeks. The swim each morning at 7 for 2 or 3 hrs, bike after lunch, and swim again and run at night. A member of our club was retained as a massage therapist, and arranged for some group rides. I had the opportunity to ride with them 3 or 4 times, and we had a BBQ at our house last Sunday for the team. I've learned some things I wanted to share.

1. They are a great group of kids. They all speak fairly decent English, but some were a little embarrased and reluctant to try to hold a conversation. They felt more comfortable if there was a few of them together so they could ask one another for words they didn't know.

2. Ages range from 18 - 24, male and female. Some were Juniors, others were U23, and some were Elite class.

3. THey train 8 hrs a day, 6 days a week. Sunday was their only free day.

4. They are all members of the Austrian Military, and as such are paid by the military. Their assignment is to the Team, and their job is "athelete." Most have sponsorships from companies of various types.

5. They ride road bikes, not tri/TT bikes. The reason is that drafting is allowed in ITU/IOC events, so TT bikes would be dangerous. Some have short aero bars, but they must be connected at the end to prevent implement in case of a pile up.

6. They leave their shoes on the bike. Before a ride the mount the bike, and put thier foot in one shoe, unclip, and put on the other shoe, Now this may be standard for triathletes, but since I'm not one, so it was strange to me.

7. I was able to keep up with them on the group rides. I'm a B+ rider. How is this possible? Well, the rides that we were able to participate in were "recovery rides." Some of their rides were "coached" and we could not participate. But other times the coach would assign them to ride for 2, 3, or 4 hrs at a moderate pace, 18 - 22 mph. Those were the rides we could go on.

8. These recovery rides were a time for them to socialize. They liked to ride in areas were they could ride uninteruped and ride side by side and chat. Swiming and running tended to be supervised, and it was hard work. No chance to socalize.

I have friended seveal of them on Facebook, and found them on triathlon.org. I'm looking forward to following their careers, and perhaps see them on the podium in 2012!

FYI - I just got the following message on Facebook from Reinhold, the coach. They left Fla on Friday. I gave each member of the team a stainless steel coffee mug/coffee press. One thing I forgot to mention in my "observations.." is that they spent a lot of down time at Starbucks. They felt at home there, as Starbucks is popular in Austria.

Hi Bob
on behalf of our team, thank You again, first for the the invitation at the nice gathering at Your house and you for the little gifts "coffee press" we all got !!
after a looong day trip, we all arrived back home...


Reinhold Garnitschnig
Coach of the Austrian National Triathlon Team

That sounds pretty cool Bob. I bet they appreciated being able to get some home cooked food away from home.

I'm not surprised at the amount of training, or at the fact that their social time was their easy rides.

I think that it's interesting how other countries devote national funds to sports that aren't as popular. Give them a gov't job and let em train.

very interesting. as a triathlete i'm confused by their shoe techniques. i always shoe up before moving my bike, although almost everyone will slip OUT of their shoes and run barefoot on the way in from the bike leg ("T2")

We had about 50 friends, neighbors, and members of my cycling club, as well as the team and coaches. We went through a ton of food. The couldn't believe how much food the team ate. They got treated to a good ole fashioned 'Merian back-yard BBQ, complete with berger and dogs, salads, beans, and toasted marshmallows over the camp fire. The coaches kept an eye on the boys to make sure they didn't pig out on beer and marshmallows.


Not being a tri guy myself, I never thought to question the practice, and I never spoke to them about the sport. I'll ask some of the Tri folks in the club, and see if they "talked shop."

I noticed that not only did the coach do the same, but he rode w/o sox.

MMMMmmmm beer and marshmallows...... :)

The shoe on the pedal thing works really well with tri-specific shoes; not so well with certain roadie shoes. And it saves a bit of time.

Just to clarify (and pump my post count) Some tried to sneak a few extra beers, some tried more than one toasted marshmallow if they could get away with it. A few tried to sneak both, but not at the same time.