June 2, 2012: South Australian triathlete Ben Tripodi admits that last season was tough going for him. Not that Tripodi had a bad season. Far from it. The 19 year old former competitive swimmer achieved outstanding results in national level events and qualified for the Australian Olympic Distance Age Group Team.
But, achieving outstanding results wasn’t enough for
Tripodi.
“Last season, things started off ok for me in
November, but after the Canberra 70.3 and Olympic distance events I felt pretty
flat” Tripodi said. “I struggled for
motivation and that ended-up with me not enjoying training as much”, he said.
“I felt like I was just going through the motions”.
That was 6 months ago.
Ben now trains under coach Steve O’Brien as a part of
the Fuse Multisport Racing Team – a team that includes 2009 U19 World AG
Champion Ella Holmes, and Australian U19 AG Duathlon Long Course Champion Sam
Tebeck. “Training under Steve with Sam and Ella has made a real difference to
my approach and motivation”, Tripodi said. “The team sets a very high standard,
not just in training but in every aspect of our preparation”, he said. “It took
me a while to adapt to the team’s approach, I found the first few months pretty
hard going, but after a break though session in February, things are moving in
a different direction now.”
“Our training is very focused – a large part of our
training is aimed at developing our mental approach. Steve is very big on
setting individual objectives and then building each of our training schedules around
those. So although we all train
together, each of us will be working on a different aspect of our preparation
at any one time. But, it’s great having Sam and Ella to benchmark myself
against – we all work well together.
We’re all preparing for the Olympic Distance World Championships in New
Zealand in October, which makes for a pretty competitive training environment.”
Coach Steve O’Brien is expecting big things from Tripodi
next season. “Ben has redefined his
upper limits and has a lot more self-belief in his abilities now. His running will be a real weapon next season
- he will surprise a few people with the extent of his improvement”.
Tripodi and O’Brien have already settled on Ben’s race
schedule for next season. “Ben's immediate
objective is the World Championships”, O’Brien said. “After than Ben will be
targeting a number of 70.3 events and a triathlon series in Melbourne”.