The ITU World Championships - Lausanne

Well, I am now back in the UK, having competed in the ITU World Age Group Champs in Lausanne Siwtzerland. The whole weekend there has been an absolute amazing experience and one that I am not likely to forget for a long time. Thanks must also go to all those that supported me and sent their good luck wishes, they were all truly appreciated.

Before I start though, it needs to be said that Lausanne is an amazingly beautiful place. It rests right on Lake Geneva which you can look out across to a lovely montain backdrop, which include Mont Blanc.



Here are some more photos of the location as well - the triathlon champs had closed down the city for a whole week.

Looking out over the lake

Looking back at the village

And out over the lake again..

Anyway, back to the story about why I was in Switzerland. After leaving plenty of time on Friday to get through the airport security etc, my plane ended up being delayed by about 45 minutes. This meant that I was going to miss registration and that it would not be very likely that I would be able to have my bike built by the GB mechanic. In the end we made it through the rush hour traffic in Lausanne for the tour operator to get me there just in time to make the official team photos...this is probably the first place it hit me and I realised how good this was going to be. Thankfully I quickly spotted a few of my buddies and we all headed over to the team briefing. During the speech they asked that all of the people who were representing for the first time to stand up and we all got a nice clap from the 'vets'....it started to feel like it was all one big happy family.

After the briefing I went for some dinner with some mates and then headed back to the hotel - I had an earlier start than all the other 25-29'ers because I had a bike to build and rack in the morning. Luckily this was all sorted by about 7am, the only problem now was that I had a massive amount of time to kill before anyone would be getting there and I would be allowed back in to transition to do my final bits and pieces before setting off. Still, this gave me some time to watch the junior races that kicked off really early. By this time, there was a definite a buzz in the air and things were starting to get pretty exciting, if not a tad nervy. Lake Geneva was also starting to look more menacing with waves that were bigger than I had ever raced in coming ashore.

With an hour to go all of us were allowed in to transition to do all of our last bits and pieces. All of the GB boys were thankfully together so I think that this took the edge of things a bit because we could all have a little chat etc. I decided at this point to take a run to see just how long this transition was going to be. Last night's briefing had mentioned an extra 3km of running in this tri...pretty much all on tarmac and all barefoot - not nice. Anyway, as you can see from this shot, transition was a nightmare - this photo does not even go to the end. My bike was about another 150m round the corner out of sight.

This would all be full with bikes on race day...all 1600 of them.

Luckily, up one side, we had some carpet to protect our delicate feet.

The swim was always going to be a nasty affair at this race, world medals are at stake so it was obviously going to be a bit rough when we set out on the swim. The waves that were coming in were not gonna make things any better either, especially as I naturally choose to breathe during a race on the right - the direction the waves were coming in from. The BTA got some shots of the start of our swim. You can see me in the first shot with the gold goggles - unfortunately they didn't mimic the Michael Johnson gold shoes scenario.

My swim went pretty badly in the end. I was expecting to go sub 22 but one of my goggles filled up with water in the first 100m after getting hit by someone so I had to swim the whole day with only one eye really. The waves also knocked me about worse that I thought they would and I would occasionally take a nice deep breath of water...lovely. I had to stop at one point just to have a little coughing fit to clear the airways again. I did manage to draft someone on the way back into T1 though so that was quite helpful.

T1 was as bad as it looks in those photos I just could not believe how long I seemed to be running for. I think it was evetually timed at 6:32..that is about the longest transition I think anyone will ever encouter.

Still, it was time for the bike now and I could see that I was already ahead of a few GB boys who were running to get their bikes but on the other side. I started out quite cautiously though because I kept on thinking of that hill. It hits you pretty quick as well...it was not as bad as it looked in the video, but still not my bag. The rest of the course was also not to my liking, not for a time trial like effort anyway. The changes in speed and some of the long drags definitely took it out of your legs and by the time I was getting round to the third and fourth lap I knew that my quads were having a bad time on the hills. Still, they would be with everyone else so there was nothing I could do about it. I did almost stack the bike into the bails on the first lap though. Coming down one of the sharp descents, perhap touching about 60kph, two guys slid off in front of me and their bikes now led directly in the path that I had to take. I skidded a bit and then squeezed the bike through the narrowest of gaps between straw bail, cyclist and two bikes. It was pretty scary I must admit.

The run was a bit strange really, I had been passed by a couple of GB boys early on and my legs were killing now and they just seemed to have nothing left in them. Secretly, I had hoped to do a blinder of a run but today was just not gonna be the day. A winter of brick sessions is on the cards I feel... The run was a four lapper though and it was pretty amazing running around. I knew I was doing about 41/42 pace so on the last lap I just soaked up the atmosphere as much as possible, I was not going for a medal or anything so it was nice to just run and hear all the GB crowd cheering you on. They all had name sheets as well so they all knew your name - those last couple of k's were pretty good. The legs were sore but it was just so cool to look out over the lake to see the mountains whilst hearing all the GB support crew cheer you on. We had been asked to get a flag on the way into the finish, which I did but I can not find my finishing shot anywhere. For those of you that saw it on the web, I probably looked like some kind of fairy.

Crossing the line was a really good feeling, a lot of the GB boys were all there slouched on the floor looking pretty knackered. Stories were shared and everyone was in good spirits really. Wil and I headed over to the village and made good use of the free massage afterwards - reckon it sorted my legs right out. The afternoon was gonna be a hard one - we had all the ladies to cheer on!

the next day we watched how it should be done with all the pros bombing it around the course. The GB team had an amazing day as well, winning the U23 and Elite races for the men.

After all this we had a big "banquet" to attend. All the elites came down to this as well and it was good to chat to a lot of them. Here is me with the World Champion, Tim Don, in the middle.



Here is Dion and I with Vanessa Raw...arguably the best thing to happen to triathlon for a long time..I am sure you can see what I mean.



My official splits can all be found HERE

You can see that the swim is about a minute slower than I wanted and the run about 3 mins too slow. I think that the bike section was about right. It is hard to guage how hard to push on a course like that because you need to look after your muscles as much as possible to stop them dying in the run (which mine did do).