USA Triathlon Is Here to Answer Your Questions About Its Recruitment Program

Barb,

You are a good sport.

It seems to me there is a heavy bias in Tri to winning/losing in the run. Is the Tri fed experimenting with distances/format?

Walk us through the qualifications for the program. Are there specific events required to qualify? Times? (obviously) Do you "fudge" for athletes showing up on a beater bike?

I am a freshman in college and i run track and cross country. I Picked up cycling my sophomore year of high school and was a competitive swimmer from 7th to 12th grade. My PR in the Olympic Triathlon is 2:12:11 after doing it only once, and to be perfectly honest half-assing my training for the swim and for the bike I only really did distance rides. Do you think if I trained I would be capable of making the qualifying standard? Also, how would you know if I had made the standard, do you look around or...?

Barb Lindquist wrote:

I turned elite at 26, then made our Olympic Team at the age of 35, 16 years after I was at Olympic Trials in swimming.... there are more Gwens out there, and there are some guys, too!

So I still have a chance! I am a 30yro sub-elite runner dabbling in triathlons (really just for the sake of crosstraining) and posted a 5:34 70.3 off of no training. What sort of times should I be shooting for to get some regional or national recognition? I am still a beginner, I've only done 2 70.3s, with a borrowed road bike and no tri-suit. I compete in a borrowed wetsuit and my running clothes. The competitive multisport scene seems way more complicated than road races, and I'm not really sure what I need to do to get to that "pro" status (assuming I can bring my times down with some focused training). Thanks!

I'm an old runner and part-time HS coach so no direct interest in this program. I , however, have observed elite development and have been following Olympic triathlons for years.

A questions and a thought:

Question: Is USAT doing anything to recruit swimmer/runners at a younger age, i.e. HS? Obviously, Gwen is a success story, but on the men's side, if the US wants to be in the same league and the likes of Brownlees and Gomez, it seems to me development and interest has to start in HS (or early college at the latest).

I'm familiar with the youth running and swimming cultures, and regularly see kids who could be triathlete material, but don't know of any USAT recruitment. The kids who excel will either end up swimming OR running in college, but from what I've seen not many of them will consider triathlon as a serious sport.

Somebody like Verzbicas was an exception and his acquaintance with triathlon came from HS.

Thought: The Ironman brand is very powerful in the US and everything "triathlon" tends to be seen through this lens. That's a shame because Olympic triathlon is different.

USAT would benefit tremendously from trying to create a separate brand for your target audience (runners/swimmers for elite pipeline). Otherwise, people will think of triathlon as my middle-aged dad's or mom's hobby, trying to stay in shape and spending $10,000 on a bike, plus more money on things like fuel-belts, GUs and other "hobby-jogger" commodities (if you've spent some time on this site, you'll be familiar with the term).

As long as triathlon is seen through that lens, it will not be considered a serious sport and this will affect recruitment.

Thanks for participating here and best of luck with the program!

Would a 15:00 5k runner that currently rides professionally in cycling be someone that you are looking for?

Are there any swim sets you recommend to prepare for 2:15/10:00 200/800?

I always thought I'd be more suited toward ironman because of the mental grind, but programs like this making giving the Olympics and a national team environment a shot irresistible.

It's for Barb to answer, but I can think of a couple of questions that will come up:

How old are you and what's your swimming background? The key point will be whether your swim can be brought to an elite level or close enough.

You seem to have the cycling and running, but swimming will be essential. The reason why there's strong emphasis on the swimming from a developmental point of view is because, for the most part, given the technical nature of swimming it has to be ideally developed at a younger age. Also, in this kind of racing you have to be a strong swimmer to make the front pack.

Also, there are other two disciplines under the ITU/USAT umbrella which are rather underdeveloped for a number of reasons (unfortunately, in my view).

One is aquathlon -swimming and running.

The other is duathlon - biking and running. If your swimming is not strong and you want to add variety to your training and mix things up, I would definitely give this one a try.

Weldon gave a great example of Renee Tomlin who joined our program in June of 2014. I had met her at NCAA back at U of Arkansas when she was running for Georgetown. She felt she had some unfinished business in the running world to accomplish and she finally re-contacted me as her elite running career was closing. I'm glad she did, as in a short amount of time she made our Olympic Trials on the Rio course this last summer. We definitely can work with an athlete a few years out of college who has been staying run fit.

This is a great question! The run has gotten so fast off the bike that our primary focus has been on recruiting runners lately. Maria Mola (Spain) ran a 28:59 off the bike at our Worlds this year in Chicago. Gwen Jorgensen (USA!) ran a 32:43. For those skeptics out there we measured the course to be within 30m of accurate. Those splits were run after a bike that had over a 100 turns (180 or 90), so lots of sprinting out of the saddle. It's going to be hard to teach a swimmer to run that fast. But as an interesting side bit, all but two of our female Olympians swam in college (only 2 who didn't were Julie Swail who played water polo and Sarah Haskins who ran.... Gwen DID swim for U Wisconsin then switched to running). On the flip side, all of our male Olympians ran in college except Andy Potts who swam for Michigan (though he did run his 5th year). When a recruit has a cycling background, it is a bonus, be we feel we can teach the bike with the engine from the run or swim.

I'm not sure what you are asking with the experimenting with distance/format. In High Performance we are focused on the Olympic pipeline, so we don't really have a say in the distance format.

The time standards and next steps for someone interested are on the usatriathlon.org website or the link to the left on my name. You may find it of interest the we actually love 1500m or 3000 steeplechasers more than a 10ker. The reason for this is that someone of the shorter distances like that have a power element in them, and this is of benefit for the transfer to the bike.

If an athlete sends me race results on a beater bike, I do compare splits of the athlete to the winner, but mostly look at the swim/run. I try to encourage recruits to go to a few races which I'm supporting so that I can meet them and work with them at clinics.

Thanks for the kudos about being a good sport, too!

Thanks for sharing your bio and for your great question! I love it when athletes who have NCAA eligibility left contact me. As someone who looks back on her NCAA swimming career with great memories, I want every athlete I talk with to feel a sense of closure at the end of their NCAA career. I want you to run fast! That said, there are lots of things we can do while you are still in school to assess your potential so that you know if triathlon at the elite level is a viable path post-grad. And there are a lot of things we can do while in college to prepare you for triathlon without hurting your running if you know this is a path you want to follow.

To answer your more specific question, our qualifying standards don't have anything to do with a triathlon result, it is more single run times and swim tests. It would be great to start an email dialogue about both.

And yes, I do do some research on athletes after they contact me.... gotta love the internet!

You can find out about how to qualify for an elite license here:

http://www.usatriathlon.org/elite-international/elite-athlete-qualification.aspx

It is one license whether you want to go the Long Course route (70.3 to Ironman) or the draft-legal (Olympics) route. Picking some bigger races where you can compare yourself to the elites is a good place to see if you have what it takes. The tri scene can seem more complicated than road races, but there are endless resources out there to help you navigate.

I'm glad you dabbled in the sport a bit to cross-train! Are you hooked?

You are a thinker! I appreciate your great insight. USAT actually has a VERY robust youth and junior program. You can read more here:

http://www.usatriathlon.org/elite-international/junior-elite/teams.aspx

There are over 35 High Performance Teams around the country and we have Talent ID Coordinators for each of our 10 regions. There are whole generations of athletes who have grown up as triathletes, not swimmers or runners.

Triathlon is also now an emerging sport in the NCAA for women. This means that these young female triathletes now have the opportunity in college to be a triathlete and not step away from the sport for 4 years to get their college paid for by running or swimming.

As for Ironman branding vs. the Olympic movement... it's getting there. When I was racing as #1 in the World I would sit on a plane next to someone, and when I told them I was a triathlete, he would ask if I've done that one in Hawaii. (Finally I had to just do it so I could say yes). But my answer was that I got to race in the Olympics. I believe Gwen, the success of our US females, time (we've been in the Olympics since 2000), and the increase in the general # of people who have raced a triathlon that is not an Ironman distance has helped people realize that triathlon takes many forms and distances. And yes, draft-legal triathlon and non-draft really are two different sports. There is a place for everyone!

Agreed with the analysis. There is a World Championships for Aquathlon (held a few days before the Triathlon at the same venue) and for Duathlon, but both are not in the Olympics. We have had collegiate runners go to Duathlon Worlds (Gwen, Sean Jefferson, Matt McElroy) as a stepping stone to triathlon. USAT has a National Duathlon series.

Barb Lindquist wrote:

You can find out about how to qualify for an elite license here:

http://www.usatriathlon.org/elite-international/elite-athlete-qualification.aspx

It is one license whether you want to go the Long Course route (70.3 to Ironman) or the draft-legal (Olympics) route. Picking some bigger races where you can compare yourself to the elites is a good place to see if you have what it takes. The tri scene can seem more complicated than road races, but there are endless resources out there to help you navigate.

I'm glad you dabbled in the sport a bit to cross-train! Are you hooked?

Thanks! Not really hooked; running is my true passion, but I AM competitive..

I'll bump this thread with a provocative question mostly unrelated to the topic at hand.

Does triathlon have a doping and corruption problem on the scale of Track and Field? Prospective track athletes certainly have to wonder whether they must dope to keep up -- is that the case in Triathlon? Is doping less effective because of the combination of skills/sports?

Hey Barb I know Lukas Verzbicas was the top triathlete US had on the men's side heading into London 2012 but with his ridiculous crash I want to know if you offer some kind of insurance or help if something that serious were to happen to me doing triathlons

Don't do it! Triathlon took away Verzbicas from arguably becoming one of the best runners we ever had and then he almost died on the bike. Go find talent outside of running to ruin with your bike crashes we don't want to lose anyone else like Lukas.

Just wondering, is the expected 5k time for a track or road race? Also, what are comparable swimming times?