A New Era

Sitting here at Mooloolaba for the first triathlon of the 2025/26 season. I’ll meander a little today as the topic of a new season has a few facets.

Comparison :

I’m lucky. When I raced, our results were sent to you in the mail. No social media. No online results.

Now we have nowhere to hide. If you have a result that wasn’t what you hoped, we turn to "what’s the caption going to be".

You have to make it about you or you won’t last. And that’s what endurance sport is. Lasting.

Your friends, your family, your coach and your workmates are there for YOU. Not your result. They think you are incredible already.

You have to stop comparing. It never works. You have no control over how your competitors race.

Recognise your own strengths and successes. Take them into the week before the race. Take them into your race. Take them into your next training session with your mates and practice confidence. Use strong body language. No more passive negative comments about yourself.

Managing the pressure to perform:

The moment you make the race about pressure perform is the moment you are handing away the enjoyment of your sport to something you have no control over.

This will have a much more profound effect on your experience of the sport than any medal.

Make the race about you. Make your competitors faceless. Race bikes and bodies. Not people. You will attach a story to people. Making the race about you allows space to execute.

There’s an air of change in endurance sport and it’s all good.

Triathlon was born as a participation sport and turned pro. This was a key to its success. Build the numbers and then on top of that success you take it to the next level.

Now we are seeing that groundswell building numbers of participation and peaking higher at the professional level.

We have bigger pro races such as the Ironman Pro Series, T100, Super Tri. Look back 15 years and you won’t see that.

We have bigger participation numbers. Not just numbers in the events but we have more events. Look at the race schedule of Elite Energy events. Huge numbers of races. We have more cycling Gran Fondo’s. Big numbers at Ocean Swimming events. We even have the advent of Hyrox. A hybrid endurance / strength event that was born out of the gym and the runners in those gyms.

The higher levels of performance at the pro level can be hard for those aspiring to that level but that’s just what it is. It’s the world setting the standard. Not coaches or athletes. It’s just us humans chasing excellence.

More eyeballs is a good thing :

There’s no doubt that we have a product on our hands here that mainstream media can and will latch onto.

Don’t fall for the “our sport is too long” line. Have you seen the numbers watching, golf, cricket, motor sport?

It’s not about the length of the game. It’s how many are watching.

T100 entered the scene and Ironman responded. The result was amazing. A better product for the athletes and ever increasing downloads resulting in more money and higher prize money at the pointy end.

We now have a crazy number of YouTube channels and podcasts filling the space. This is what will drive the next level.

Already, we are seeing interest from the big players. Don’t worry, they notice us and they have a big business that demands interest. Look at the Sydney Marathon. 55,000 competitors. How many sports have those numbers?

Why is this good for us? It’s good for us because our sport will become more accepted. Those drivers that abuse us on the roads won’t anymore because they will relate to us just like they do in Europe. Our mates will “get it” more when you explain what an Ironman is to them.

So in conclusion :

As we enter a new season, it’s exciting times but you have to learn how to manage the excitement. You have to meet the sport where it is. Not want it to change for you.

Take a deep breath, have fun and race hard.