Bill Davoren's Olympic Games Preview
Wednesday, 06 August 2008 11:36
With the Olympics just around the corner, we asked Australia's Head Triathlon coach, Bill Davoren, for his views on how both races might unfold. Bill also gives us an individual look at the whole Australian team. While the team is split at the moment, with Densham, Kahlefeldt and Davoren in France and the rest of the group in Australia with their medical and coaching team, the group comes together later this week to make their final preparations to vie for an elusive gold medal.
Brad Kahlefeldt
Look, it's been a tough year. Obviously with his pneumonia at the end of last year and then coming back from that, he's had some good form at the start of the season. Brad then had a hip problem in April which made it tough, but he's coming along well. He's still coming up to peak fitness. We're very close and not too far away.
I expect by next week he'll be in pretty good condition. He had a good race in Hungary in some pretty hot weather against Javier (Gomez) so I'm happy where he's at. It's been a tough year and he's handled it very well and stuck to his guns.
Courtney Atkinson
Courtney's plan has been very similar for the last two years. In fact, both Brad and Courtney have had very similar plans for the last two years. Courtney has stayed at home (on Queensland's Gold Coast) and he's raced earlier in the season. He had some problems early on with his asthma. That's been cleared up and he raced in Singapore and won that in some pretty steamy conditions.
He's recently been running in a series of local road races and ran a pretty good 10km at the Gold Coast. So he's in good shape and seems positive about where he's at. Everyone knows that his track record in Asia is pretty hard to beat, so again he seems to be content and positive about where his form is.
* Greg Bennett remain the first reserve for the Australian mens Tri team.
Emma Snowsill
Emma's had a fantastic year after a tough 2007, where she had some good losses, educational losses. There was some discovery with her health (asthma) and whilst it was a difficult year, it was a year she needed to have. Her form this season has been impeccable, and her preparation has been terrific. Craig (Walton, Snowsill's fiance and coach) has done an outstanding job in getting her ready. She's probably had more pressure on her than anyone else in the Triathlon team and has handled that with great aplomb.
Again, the mantle of favoritism with the Olympics is something we are wary of given the history of previous Olympics. There's no way she can hide though from the fact that she will be seen alongside Fernandes (Portugal's Vanessa Fernandes) as a clear favourite. But Emma's always handled the pressure well. The key thing with that is that she has a great team of people around her, medical staff her management that are helping her get ready for the Games and both her and Craig have done a terrific job.
Emma Moffat
Emma has had a good year, recently coming off some very good training in Cairns. Her stint in Cairns with coach Shaun Stevens was a good one. Emma has had a good World Championship performance, good Des Moines (World Cup race) performance and has shown very good, early season form. She also won a World Cup race in New Zealand and she's a tough athlete. Emma is almost our 'Miss Reliable' because she's always there and always fighting. She's very tough mentally. I expect her to be in the mix and fighting. And you know with Emma she won't leave anything unturned to give 100%.
Erin Densham
Erin is the smoky. She's the one we all know has that lethal run leg. It's a run feared in Europe. People know than on her day, Erin is capable of doing anything. When you look at how Erin has run on certain occasions and types of conditions over the last 18 months, she's proved that she's capable of putting the fear of God into her competitors.
The key for Erin is obviously to have a good swim leg to set herself up on the bike and allow her to be in the mix. We're certainly wary of a lot of expectations on Erin. We see her as someone who could potentially go on to two more Olympics. She really is capable of anything. We haven't set any targets for her, we haven't said anything to her about medals. We just talk about trying to get the best performance out of her on the day and coming away from this with a positive bit of experience to go forward into the future. But she's our smoky I think.
The Olympic course
The best description for the course is challenging. It's a one lap swim, which I think changes the dynamics because you don't have as many turns at the cans and so you don't have as much acceleration and deceleration.
The bike course has probably got several components to it. It has a 800m climb, which takes about 60-70 seconds and then it's got a couple of short power climbs around it.
The run is four laps with a 250m downhill and a 250m uphill section in it. That's going to be one of the key sections. Off the downhill there's a flat section of about another 250m so it's almost a kilometre component of the 2.5 kilometre lap that's quite challenging. Many of us feel that's one of the key elements of the race.
We know it's going to be hot, we know it's going to be humid and maybe polluted and to be honest, we hope it is. We hope conditions are horrendous. I'm really looking for that 35+ degree day and 80% humidity and hoping that the conditions are really tough so it brings out the best in the athletes on the day.
Race Tactics
In terms of predicting how the race is going to go, I'm not even going to attempt to do that. I can recall in Sydney (2000) how people had all sorts of visions of how the race was going to pan out and nothing, none of it, went that way. I think In Athens (2004) it was a little more predictable because the nature of the bike course. For Beijing, I haven't even wasted my time trying to contemplate how the race is going to go. We've spoken all the way along about making sure that they (the athletes) are prepared for whatever happens on the day, that's all you can do.
The key Men to watch
Gomez is the clear favorite; I don't think anyone is going to dispute that. He's not impossible to beat, but he's in great form. He's the favorite and I have no problems anointing him as the clear favorite. And I'm happy for him to be favorite. But there are people galore who will feature, like Docherty, Gemmel, Henning, Don, the list is extensive. You could have the greatest race of your life in Beijing and still finish eighth. You just have to turn up and race it, especially in the men's race.
After Gomez, there's probably another 18 guys. I've worked out there is about 18 guys who could, along with Gomez, feature on the podium in any sort of combination. Our guys are two of those.
So that's the way I see it. As to what transpires, well, it's the Olympics and I'm not even going to predict whether they are going to stand on the podium or not. It's just impossible to predict, but our guys are just two of the guys who could make up that podium combination.
