Having never won a major title in the sport or even competed since his cycling doping confessions three years ago, Lance Armstrong remains arguably the most controversial name in tri.
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“Let Lance Armstrong race Kona” says Ironman legend Dave Scott
Armstrong is making headlines once more, having recently revealed in a podcast with Movember Men’s Health that it was the way he “mistreated people” that he regrets the most from his time dominating (and cheating his way) to seven Tour de France victories.
Armstrong also polarised opinion at a 35km trail race he won at the weekend in California, with Joe Gray, a US national trail-running champion, taking to Facebook to air his distain:
“Race directors allowing him into racing need to understand that it’s not because of his doping alone that he is not welcome. It’s because of the things he did outside of doping and the fact that he could influence others to take the negative plunge he once took.”
On 220’s Facebook page, we posed the question of whether Armstrong should be allowed to compete when his ban is lifted in August 2016, and garnered some fascinating responses ranging from yes’s, to definitive no’s, to indifference and back again. Here’s our pick of the comments…
For
Despite many commenters supporting or wanting Armstrong’s return, many still had contempt for the man himself:
Whilst others had respect for Armstrong’s ability regardless of his past, or claimed that his presence could actually strengthen testing procedures in tri:
Against
For others it was simply a straightforward ‘no’, with potential damage to triathlon’s image cited as one of the reasons:
Indifference
Others believed the furore surrounding Armstrong has gone on too long, and regardless of what happens it’s time for sport, and the triathlon community, to move on:
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Look out for more opinion and coverage of the Lance Armstrong debate on our website in the new year – for now, do you have anything more to add to the points made above?
Sport England’s latest statistics indicate that there’s a growth of female participation in sport, and a continued rise in triathlon participation. This is matched with nearly a 10% increase in Triathlon England membership in 2015.
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Sport England’s Active People Survey measures the number of people taking part in sport across the nation. It reaches 165,000 adults (age 14 and over) and began in 2005/6. Findings are published every six months.
Participants report their individual activities, such as swimming, cycling and running, so measuring triathlon data accurately is problematic. The number of individuals participating in triathlon is recognised to be well in excess of 100,000 on an annual basis.
While this number isn’t picked up by the Active People Survey, there was a 38% rise since last year in the number reporting that they were taking part in triathlon on a monthly basis; an increase from 9,700 to 13,400.
OW SWIMMING GROWTH
Furthermore, there has been a 5% growth in participation in open-water swimming. Female participation levels in sport have risen, which is being attributed in part to the ‘This Girl Can’ campaign. There are now 148,700 more women playing sport and getting active once a week, every week, than there were a year ago.
British Triathlon Chief Executive Jack Buckner added: “These are encouraging figures from Sport England, and our internal indicators are all positive too. Home Nations membership has reached its highest ever level, with Triathlon England membership having risen 9.8% since this time last year.
“GO TRI has introduced a lot of new people to triathlon. There were 10,000 race starts in GO TRI events this year, and 47% of those registered on the GO TRI website are female. In fact, our highest participation growth area is women over 55, which is hugely encouraging and demonstrates the broad appeal of participating in triathlon.
“Increased participation in triathlon is one of the major strands of our recently launched vision for sport to 2024. So we’re pleased with the positive indicators that have been released by Sport England via the Active People Survey.”
A challenge in the heart of the largest rainforest in the world. This is what athletes can expect to find at Challenge Amazonia on 20 March 2016. The chosen location is Manaus, capital of Amazonas – the largest and best-preserved Brazilian state.
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With two million inhabitants, Manaus is one of the few cities in the world that can combine forest preservation and a high economic development with one of the largest industrial parks in the country, international hotel chains and shopping malls. The historic centre is marked by the beautiful buildings and sumptuous palaces. Among them, the Amazonas Theatre is the ultimate iconic symbol that gave Manaus its fame as the ‘Paris of the Tropics’.
The start of the event couldn’t be in a better place: the beach of Ponta Negra – the most famous postcards of the North part of Brazil. Bathed by the Black River, with calm and warm waters, the location is ideal for the first stage of the race: 1.9km of swimming.
Then athletes follow the two-lap 90km bike leg along the Ponta Negra waterfront. Another unique experience is the biking across the Rio Negro Bridge, the second largest river bridge in the world, at 3,595m long. From there, athletes can enjoy one of the most beautiful views of the river. Heading back to Ponta Negra, it’s time to face the 21km race on a flat course.
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The inaugural Challenge Amazonia will take place on 20 March 2016 with further information and entries available at www.challenge-amazonia.com
Fresh from the announcement of Challenge Amazonia, Challenge have today launched their latest exotic race destination with the half distance Challenge Vietnam in the city of Nha Trang on 11 September 2016.
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Challenge Vietnam will run alongside Nha Trang’s six kilometre stretch of coastline with its white sandy beaches, clear waters and an abundance of marine life, verdant mountain ranges at each end, as well as an archipelago of 19 untouched islands just a short boat ride away.
The region – situated on the country’s south-eastern coast and an hour flight from the major Ho Chi Minch City – also offers host of sightseeing and recreational activities with the town itself full of breath-taking architecture dating back to the ancient Champa Kingdom, Buddhist temples as well as natural hot springs, salt fields and majestic waterfalls.
The race will begin with a 1.9km swim in the tropical waters of the beautiful beaches of Nha Trang City, followed by a 90km bike ride, which takes athletes to see the sights and sounds of Nha Trang City. The race culminates with a 21km run along Nha Trang City’s coastline strip
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For further information, visit www.challengevietnam.com
From his Castle Howard experience to the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Awards, it’s been some year for Bailey Matthews. John Hardcastle, talks about the eight-year-old’s multisport journey and the indomitable spirit that’s made Bailey the talk of tri and beyond…
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None of us could’ve expected that Bailey would make such an impact – but at the same time – what everybody saw on that Saturday in July at the Castle Howard tri was nothing that his family hadn’t seen before. I think it’s fair to say that we’ve all become desensitised to his indomitable spirit and ability to overcome.
It’s also fair to say that he hasn’t achieved any of this alone; there are many people who have played a huge part in creating the enigma that is Bailey Matthews!
Starting with his parents Jono and Julie; they never wrapped him in cotton wool and have always encouraged him to overcome his disability. There were times when he was very small, he had bruises on his face, lumps, cuts and bumps on his head because he was allowed to live a ‘normal life’. As a result, Julie would worry about what school and medical professionals who came into contact with him might think – but neither parent has sought to curtail his determination to have a go at anything and everything. They encouraged him to do whatever his older brother did; swimming, indoor climbing, gymnastics you name it, he’s done it.
parkrun participation
Another group who played a big part in his development as an athlete have been the Clumber Park parkrun team. They embraced Bailey’s participation at the run and made him feel as though he was as good as any other participant – even before he started doing it ‘independently’.
When he first started doing the parkrun, Jono and I would take turns pushing him around in a mobility pushchair (a big baby jogger). It wasn’t long before he said that he wanted to ‘do it himself’ – and he did. The walker had tiny, three-inch diameter wheels for ordinary terrain; he walked a bit and did some in the pushchair on the tough parkrun mixed terrain.
The very next week, Jono found an engineering company who modified the walker and fitted new chunky, all-terrain wheels. That week he did the run alone under his own steam. At the end of the lap – long after everybody else had finished – many people stayed behind and formed a tunnel, giving him the Mexican wave, a massive round of applause and the look on his face was priceless. Everybody present had a lump in their throat and a tear in their eye.
Whenever I walked around the course with him, you couldn’t help but be humbled. The fact that every runner that passed him shouted encouragement gave him a high-five or ruffled his hair – that sort of attention and camaraderie is something I wished every youngster could experience in sport.
No easy option
Bailey was in tears when Jono and I left for the 2014 London Triathlon. I recall Jono telling me on the journey that Bailey said he wanted to do a triathlon and that he had ordered him a wetsuit. Jono also that he would need to get in the water with Bailey and the Castle Howard team were very accommodating. I expected that when it came to it, they’d turn around and say ‘the rules won’t allow it’ or ‘our insurers won’t cover us for his participation’ or ‘health and safety’ – but, no, Jono entered Bailey for the Castle Howard event and Bailey started his training. It’d have been so easy for them to rely on one of the aforementioned excuses, to take the easy option. Far from it, they were not only amenable; they went out of their way to make it happen.
Bailey was excited and committed; he went open-water swimming, his dad got him a little indoor spin bike and he continued to do the parkrun. But I still expected that, when it came to it, someone would pull the plug and he wouldn’t be allowed to participate.
Bailey’s character and indomitable spirit means he knows he isn’t going to finish in first place and he’s likely to be last – but he enjoys it anyway. Something I wish I had – an ability to participate for the love of it! All too often we put barriers up because we’re scared of how we will perform; that we’ll not perform to standards that we are able to meet or exceed. But then you look at Bailey and realise that if he does it, why don’t we do it?
He’s an inspiration – and he doesn’t realise it. To him it’s just ‘a bit of fun’ – but he is still competitive!
Of course I’ve seen Bailey complain that he has a blister or a sore hand (from holding his walker) – but what I’ve never seen is him complain because he isn’t able-bodied. I don’t think Bailey sees himself as disabled or incapable (partly because his mum, dad and others – the parkrun crew or the Castle Howard team – have always made it possible for him to do whatever he wants).
I think Bailey sees his disability the way that able-bodied people see their limitations; he may not be as quick as others – but it doesn’t mean he can’t do it, it just means he’s limited as to how good he can be. If nobody else, he can compete against himself and do that because he enjoys it. That’s how Bailey sees his Cerebral Palsy.
He’s an incredible little lad, as his dad has said, he’s an author, a singer/songwriter, computer expert, an entrepreneur and a quasi-lawyer. He’s easily inspired, incredibly enthusiastic about whatever he does, has incredible self-confidence and absolute determination.
Tri impact
The attention and the accolades that he’s received are unexpected but thoroughly deserved. I just hope he continues to make this impact on triathlon and the world of sport. I know that he is determined to do all of the Castle Triathlon series next year and the team have been absolutely fabulous with him.
One person who has perhaps been overlooked for their part on that day was the compere. If you watch the clip captured by his other uncle; those words really built-up that finish – and I always find myself coming back to them, ‘see what happens when we all come together’.
That really sums it up; it’s taken a lot of people to make that happen: his mum and dad, Redlands School in Worksop, the Movement Centre who have treated Bailey, the parkrun crew who gave him his first taste of organised sport and the Castle Triathlon team who made it possible for him to do a ‘real’ multi-sport event.
I’m convinced Bailey will continue to ‘push it’ each time he’s out there and that he will become increasingly independent – expect to see him abandoning the walker more often – or pushing away a helping hand from dad!
Despite all the attention, Bailey hasn’t changed at all. Im sure he will continue to be a cheerful, confident and cheeky little chap. Bailey doesn’t realise the attention he’s had and the magnitude of these awards and accolades. I remember after Pride of Britain – I spoke to him on the phone, all he wanted to do was talk about a new computer that one of his fellow Pride of Britain award winners had sent him. I suspect that one day, he will look back on it and find it difficult to believe just how big it all was – but for now, it’s just another day meeting new people.
I feel privileged to be Bailey’s uncle – he’s an inspiration to me and I just hope that he continues to be as determined, as cheerful, as confident and as able as he is!
Picking up a new hobby after watching a movie on an aeroplane may seem fairly normal to most people – but when that new hobby involves swimming the English Channel followed by some of the most dangerous straits of water known to man, it begins to sound less conventional!
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Adam Walker did exactly that, and eventually his accomplishments in swimming allowed him to turn his passion into a career as a swim coach and motivational speaker, with his own coaching website oceanwalkeruk.com to promote the teaching of the Ocean Walker front crawl technique.
How the Ocean Walker swim stroke can benefit triathletes
From his humble beginnings as a toaster salesman, Adam went on to become the first Brit to swim from Spain to Morocco and back (a feat only nine people have ever accomplished). Not only this, but Adam had ‘no choice’ but to break the British record for a single crossing on the return swim before the tides and the weather got the best of him. He has also swam the Oceans 7 channel swimming challenge, the swimming equivalent to the seven summits in mountaineering, and a new book charting his epic adventures is now on sale.
As a youngster, Adam suffered numerous injuries that hampered a potential cricket career and other sporting opportunities:
“It’s a similar story to most sportsmen who suffer injuries at a young age. By the time I got to my twenties I thought I was too old to make it anywhere in sport because you need to do it as a teenager.
“I felt I was capable of doing something, but didn’t know what it was. I watched a movie of a man swimming the English Channel on a plane and was inspired. I thought: well the two things I was bad at in my swimming days were front crawl and long distance. I was a backstroke sprinter before, so I made it my aim to master something I never got the hang of before.”
Adam’s rise from salesman to one of the most accomplished open-water swimmers around was immortalised by a peculiar scenario that would eventually end up on TV screens. While swimming in New Zealand for his dolphin conservation charity, Adam was joined on his journey by some unfamiliar company that may have saved his life. Footage went viral and has been seen over 5 million times on YouTube.
The video of Adam swimming in the Cook Strait, which has been viewed millions of times.
“A couple of dolphins appeared, I had a shark underneath me but they stayed with me for an hour and a half, pretty much saving my life. This then led to a documentary on dolphin intelligence that I’ve hosted this year. It’s amazing what materialised from this strange sequence of events in the end!”
The sheer distances Adam covers led us to wander how he fuels his mammoth swims. His reply wasn’t quite what we expected:
“By the time I got to New Zealand, the one thing that always settled my stomach and I found really beneficial was homemade soup; so I was getting my carbs mostly from vegatables and natural foods. Obviously that’s not as many carbs as you’d get in specific energy products, but because it’s all natural and good for my system I didn’t get any acid reflux issues that could have done more harm than good.”
Throughout his ocean adventures, Adam has been an ambassador for swimming brand Zoggs, and talked us through their new Predator Range:
“The new Predator swim shorts are fantastically comfortable and durable, the last thing you need when you’re swimming for 17 hours straight is poor quality kit so they’ve been brilliant for me so far.
“I’ve always been a huge fan of the Zoggs Predator goggles; they’re very soft and well-fitting, and I’m excited for the smoke lenses to come out in January to help with really sunny swims!”
After so many accomplishments, Adam told us he’s not quite done yet, and still has some tricks up his sleeve for the future:
“I’ve now started hosting long-distance swimming events, so I’m really enjoying giving back to others and helping them achieve their goals.
After achieving most of the things I wanted to personally, I’m now more focused on promoting the sport of swimming by coaching and teaching the Ocean Walker swimming technique, which has led to many of my swimmers achieving PB’s and preventing shoulder injuries. I’m also committed to raising awareness of my dolphin conservation charity, something very dear to my heart.
“I’m not sure if there will be another ocean challenge because once you’ve swam the seven toughest, there’s nothing to really top it! But I do have a challenge planned, it’s a bit up in the air at the moment and I can’t reveal what it is, but watch this space in the new year!”
Adam Walker’s book ‘Man VS Ocean’ is now available to buy here. You can also visit the Ocean Walker website to find out more about the Ocean Walker front crawl swimming technique, and Adam’s website to find out more about his latest challenges and events.
The Zoggs Predator swimwear range launches in January 2016 and will be available exclusively at Wiggle. The launch is being supported by open water swimmers and triathletes who have tried and tested the Predator range.
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From January 2016 further information and product details will be available at www.wiggle.co.uk/zoggs
Twenty-fifteen was the year we saw new races launch, iconic races celebrate milestone anniversaries and more innovative products released than one can shake a lightsaber at. But which were best?
It’s time for you to let us know, as round one of polling for the 220 Triathlon Awards 2016 is now open. You can choose any athlete, race or product you like – plus this year every voter will be entered into a draw to win an Altium i10 specialist performance device, worth £499.
For the second year, TV chef Gordon Ramsay and his wife Tana are offering triathletes places to race in the sold out Ironman 70.3 UK Staffordshire as part of the GTR100 team.
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Only 100 places are up for grabs to join Gordon and Tana on the 1.2-mile open water swim, 56-mile bike and 13.1-mile run in the Shugborough Country Estate on 12 June 2016.
Each place costs £1,200 and members of the team will have to commit to raising at least £2,500 for the Gordon and Tana Ramsay Foundation, which recently launched a new partnership with Great Ormond Street Hospital, one of the world’s leading children’s hospitals. Funds raised by the Foundation will go to Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity and will help the hospital to provide world-class care for young patients and their families.
Members of the GTR100 will receive:
1. The opportunity to be receive training advice from Alistair and Jonny Brownlee, Richard Varga and Frederik Van Lierde as well as coaching from Olympic swimmer Cassie Patten.
2. Limited edition GTR100-branded training kit, including a Huub Archimedes or Atana wetsuit.
3. Musculoskeletal screening with Team GB Athletics physiotherapists
4. Full hospitality from Gordon Ramsay’s team at the post-race reception
5. A host of further benefits, including a welcome evening with Gordon and Tana Ramsay, over £1,000 of kit, access to expert training plans and discounts at leading sport retailers
To secure one of the limited places on the GTR100 register today via the link here.
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Would you be keen to race as part of Gordon Ramsay’s team? Let us know on the forum here.
Whether it’s on city centre harbours, rural rivers or remote lakes, the rise in popularity of stand up paddle boarding (SUP) has been unavoidable in recent summers. And the 2016 looks to be the biggest yet in terms of triathlon SUP events, with a major new series being hosted across England and Wales.
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Kicking-off at Chepstow diving centre on 8 May 2016, the triSUP Series is a five-date affair from Martin Barden, the founder of UK Cycling Events, the largest cycling event organiser in Europe.
Each event will have two triSUP levels of Short and Standard, with Short event starting with a 1.5km paddle board leg before a 15km off-road or 25km road bike leg, and a 3kmrun to finish. Standard will involve a 3km SUP, 25km MTB or 40km road bike and 5km run.
Relay, group options on 4-8 person boards, SUP/bike and SUP/run events will also be offered, with draws including a £10 paddle board hire, a £35-50 race charge and flexible starting times for the staggered-start races. The organisers expect finish times to range from 3-4hrs.