Colleen Quigley to Triathlon?

A weak case. Triathlon appeared in the Olympics for the first time in 2000. Without question the quality of athlete was much lower in the infant stages of the sport as it is that way in EVERY sport that is new (looked at how much improvement there has been in women's steeple or PV after they were added to the Olympics). How many of the triathletes in Sydney grew up racing triathlons? I think none. How many racing in Tokyo grew up racing triathlon? I think most. Flora Duffy raced her first triathlon when she was 7. Katie Zaferes didn't grow up racing triathlons but she was recruited by the College Recruitment program, which did not exist in 2000, so she would not have been in the pool of athletes in 2000 had she been born 20 years earlier because she never would have been racing triathlons in the first place. Same with Gwen Jorgensen.

You can speculate all you want about how Lindley or Montgomery would be competitive today with better training and gear but the fact still remains that the pool of athletes competing in 2000 was minuscule compared to the pool of athletes competing today so it is exponentially more competitive today versus 2000. For that reason it is all but impossible for someone to pick up swimming as an adult and be competitive in ITU racing today even if they are an uber biker and swimmer. They will get dropped on the swim and other than Taylor Knibb (who now is a front pack swimmer anyway so she never is far behind the front if at all) nobody is catching the front of the start of the bike. 70.3 and IM are a different story as Sodaro showed last year, which is why I think CQ should be focusing on 70.3.

"How many of the triathletes in Sydney grew up racing triathlons? I think none."

Congrats. That wasn't coherent at all.

2000 Sydney Gold medalist Simon Whitfield did his first tri at age 12. He grew up racing triathlons, doofus. Kids triathlon programs were around in the 80's in america (Rainbow Ironkids). Lance Armstrong raced Ironkids in 1984. 2000 Sydney Olympian Hunter Kemper (america) was a product of Ironkids. 2000 Sydney Olympian Nick Radkewich (america) was a product of Ironkids as well. He won ironkids in 85'. Many other countries had youth programs too. Like the entire country of Oz.

All of those triathletes grew up racing triathlons.

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You don't need to speculate. Lindley crushed for a season. You can't change history.

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"For that reason it is all but impossible for someone to pick up swimming as an adult and be competitive in ITU racing today even if they are an uber biker and swimmer"

You are getting worse. An "uber swimmer" is already in the first group. You just described Craig Walton.

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"and other than Taylor Knibb nobody is catching the front of the start of the bike."

Maya Kingma and Flora Duffy. Others too.

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Before speaking about Quigley, learn about triathlon. You are an embarrassment to your own username.

Now that you have lowered yourself into name-calling, let's point out all of the idiotic things you have stated.

Flora Duffy is going to catch the front of the bike??? She is the front of the bike and one of the very best swimmers! She literally was first out of the water in Abu Dhabi. She was 8 seconds back in Tokyo. Is she first out of the water every race? No but damn close. Same with Kingma. She's a top swimmer who was only 10 seconds back in Abu Dhabi. She was on the bad side of the pontoon in Tokyo and got dropped on the swim and was 56 seconds back. Did she catch the lead group on the bike? Nope. Regardless, we were talking about non-swimmers learning how to swim as an adult who cannot swim with the top swimmers and have to make up the deficit on the bike and run. Kind of the Spirig race plan. That no longer works because even Spirig can make up for her weak swim when the front of the bike has Duffy, GTB and whichever other few uber swimmer/bikers make it.

Craig Walton? You really need to get past these 1990s athletes. Yes, he was a great at the swim but how about the run? That 33 he split on the run in the 2000 Olympics would not cut it in today's world.

Lindley, I get it that you have a fetish for her ("she changed history"???) and refuse to understand that she raced in the early years of women's triathlon where the pool of athletes was vastly weaker than the pool today but the facts are the facts. You probably think that Stacy Dragila, who won the first woman's Olympic pole vault, was competing against the same level of competition that competed in Tokyo in 2020.

Definitely. But why can't Sanders get the feel of an age grouper? What is so different at training from say 8->18 versus 20->30 that almost no one can do it? For the age group triathlon it is easy to say they can't hit the pool 2x/day for 3 years. But a guy like Sanders can make that type of commitment. We end up with debates about neuroplasticity and the like but it always comes across as guesses more than hard science.

Yes short term it would totally mess with your run and the bike, but who cares how well you run/bike if your 4 mins back leaving the water. Long term if they could improve their water feel, they could cut back on swimming. Keep the efficiency gains, and run and bike better cause they are pressing as hard.

There are a few people who pick up technique sports as adults and do well. But it is rare. How much of that is poor learning (sanders talks constantly about trying to overpower the water. You can sort of do that as an adultm not so much as a 50lb kid) versus just inability (both in terms of learning and just having the time) is hard to say.

You are getting into the neurological parts of it, which I am no expert in. When we get to a certain age, it is almost impossible to re-wire your brain the same way someone's brain is wired who has been doing certain tasks from an early age. It's the same thing with languages as it is almost impossible to learn a completely new language as an adult and not have some kind of accent. Same with with most instruments. Concert pianists are not created in their 30s. There are plenty of examples of people switching sports or learning new team sports in their teens (look at all of the TEs in the NFL who played basketball in college) but nobody is picking up swimming or the cello as a 25 year old for the first time and becoming the best in the world (or close to it).

People have picked up golf at like 22 and become world class. That is about as technique based as it comes. It is rare. But so are the cases where a 22+ year old can spend 20+ hours/week on a recreational activity. It isn't clear if that is the bigger limit or if it is neuroplasticity. Is the neuroplasticity of a guy like Franz who didn't start piano until 17 that different than a 25 year old? Again research is a bit mixed. There is some research that suggests adults learn languages about as well as kids. But a 40 year old talking like an 8 year in another language isn't impressive. A 10 year old speaking like an 8 year old is.

I'm not sure golf is the best example, but how many and who at 22 to be world class? In general, to have great technique in a technique sport you need to start young to be at the top - but with swimming specifically, the need for good technique is amplified as you are moving through water, not air. Water has a much higher density so is less forgiving than air for bad technique. Meaning, if you move inefficiently in water it will slow you down a whole lot more than moving inefficiently in air.

Just to add my two cents to this discussion of the difficulty/low probability of swimming at an elite level starting as an adult, in addition to learning technique, there are a number of physiological characteristics of talented swimmers that may not be present in many runners and bikers. While they all may have comparable aerobic capacities, for swimmers, hand size, arm length, shoulder flexibility, hip flexibility, knee and ankle flexibility and foot size are all very important to how you can pull yourself through the water. Most of these physical factors are far less critical to running or biking success.

Size factors (feet, hands, arm length) are not important for Olympic swimmers. Too many great swimmers with none of your size attributes to list here. Olympic triathletes who are great swimmers do not have these size features anyway.

Feel for the water (time doing proper sets and drills) is. No way around it. Age group swimmers spend tons of time in the water doing drill work + distance. Takes lots of time, and if crossed with running and cycling volume, as an adult, the time/energy it takes to develop into a first or second pack swimmer for draft legal triathlon is too much.

Most pros that give up draft legal / Olympic aspirations realize the swimming levels they need to reach the Olympics ain't happening. Drops in the other disciplines begin and they must choose how they will distribute their performance losses amongst the three disciplines as they struggle taking on swim volume. Many can't adapt. They weigh in gains for swimming vs. losses elsewhere then pull the plug.

and viola, non-drafting triathlon is saturated with more and more talent.

Funny. The hardest efficiency drill we did in the pool was "swimming golf", to develop DPS (distance per stroke), which is the crux of swimming.

Drop time over a distance but also drop stroke count to get a lower combined score (time/count = under/over par). Insanely difficult to do.

Most adult triathletes have a hard time improving DPS.

This ^

I swam one or two years as a youth, then picked it up again in my 50s. Even getting a handle on DPS has taken years, and I was trained long ago.

How many Olympic swimmers have you trained with? How many swimming national championships or Olympic trials have you been on the deck for? How many pro triathletes have you trained swimming with? I have trained with a half dozen swimmers who made Olympic teams and probably three times that number who qualified for O trials. I trained with pro triathletes for about 10 years from the early days of the sport. I have been married to an elite swimmer for over thirty years. I would suggest that you don't know as much about swimming as you think you do if you don't understand the importance of the physical factors I mentioned to swimming success.

because age group swimmers aren't also biking and running 17 - 20 hours a week.

They swim twice a day (many days) and they do "dry land" swimming specific drills out of the water (swim bands/stretch cordz, swim bench, weights), to supplement in-the-water swim drills. It never stops for age groupers. It's constant 'feel for the water' chasing.

When Sanders says, "I am committed to working on my swimming. It's what I am going to do!!" He is not talking about itu level swimming, as you know. But he is up against that level of swimmer in 70.3 and IM most times. He will always be frustrated, trying to get closer to people who grew up age group swimming. He doesn't want to spot them so much time but they already did the work when they were kids. Sanders didn't. And it's harder to get proper DPS and recruitment patterns down as an adult.

Olympic swimmers, in general, are larger people (tall) but their hands / feet size, and arm spans being disproportionately longer than what is normal for their height is not true. See almost every elite swimmer. That was Phelps and a very small number of Olympic swimmers with those freak attributes. Swimmers with proportional hand/feet size, arm spans are beating Phelps' NAGs and WRs too.

Maybe you should divorce then remarry many elite swimmers to realize your point doesn't exist. Your empirical data set is sample size one. Then I'll tell you to just use the internet and avoid the divorces.

This thread is about triathletes. How many professional, draft legal triathletes do you know? I spent years around them because I was one.

I made the same mistake, taking a big break from swimming. But I was only out a couple years (not decades) and it did me in when I tried to restart at the high level I needed.

It's an almost impossible formula to figure out, volume wise. You really need everything: a great diet, massage, stretching, recovery sleep (afternoon / late morning naps), coaches, teammates, travel $$$. In the end, it amounts to having a lot of money to even think about making it work. After that, you still have to figure out the volume / intensity / discipline conundrum.

But by this point you would think he would have done about the same level of work as some 22 year old.

Obviously there are a lot of parts. Maybe technique learning is really hindered by all that other volume. Maybe doing 2 days for 5 years is better than 1/day for 10. Heck maybe it turns out no matter what he would have done as a kid, this is his swimming level. Maybe we are just seeing survivorship bias (nobody talks about all the all group swimmers who are slower than him).

Or maybe we just suck and knowing how to teach movement skills..

In the end though this issue makes it hard to get excite about any runner without a swim background who says they are doing tri. There is just a long list of them who can bike and run but just never get good enough at swimming.

It's as simple as this: Youth and college swimmers spend many hours in the pool, every day, for years. They have a feel for the water, that is incredibly hard to achieve from someone that hasn’t had this training. An adult swimmer can become very good, but it would be near impossible for that person to become good enough to even hang on the back of a pack of elite swimmers. I rose to the professional ranks of cycling with bad form, I muscled my way through; you just can't do that with swimming.

Pro triathletes also spend many hours in the water for a decade. But they don't seem to develop the feel for the water if they didn't do it as a kid. We can debate why forever.

It should be noted we aren't talking about pro level swimming. We are talking 1 or 2 notches down (i.e. running 28min 10ks not 26:50s) with our slow swimmers being another notch down.

Cycling is sort of unique in that form doesn't seem to matter much. Get someone with a big aerobic engine and they seem to do fine. Running has a huge efficiency part as does swimming.