STATE OF PLAY
The British triathlete has swapped Leeds for less intensity and lie-ins, and it might just be the tonic she needs. Tim Heming explains…
Non Stanford was just 3secs from an Olympic medal. Defeated by training partner Vicky Holland in a dramatic sprint finish in the Rio Olympics, it was a cruel blow, but not the first nor the last of a string of frustrations since a surprise senior world championship success in 2013.
Over the intervening years, the Welsh triathlete, who is to many the most graceful runner competing in short-course racing, has gone from one injury setback to the next, to the point where she was ready to quit the sport. If change was necessary, it also meant leaving the tried-and-tested Leeds high performance base that refined her career and has been responsible for all five of Britain’s Olympic triathlon medals. Where to turn? Fuerteventura in the Canary Islands and a coach who demanded her full focus… to run more slowly.
Her new coach Joel Filliol is no stranger to getting the best from the world’s best triathletes. Even by the Canadian’s high standards, last year was something special. Spain’s Mario Mola won a third consecutive world title, USA’s Katie Zafares finished runner-up in the World Triathlon Series, and in the showcase Grand Final on Gold Coast it was Filliol men on the podium. On Filliol’s website a quote from the late, great New Zealand athletics coach Arthur Lydiard reminds us that “champions are all around us, all you have to do is train them properly”. If that’s true, then Filliol seems to have honed his formula by “constantly reinforcing that my triathletes have done enough.”
It’s not a leadership comment you’ll hear in too many highperformance industries, yet the more you chat with Filliol, the more you realise that his philosophy is forged on consistency and mitigating risks. “I become nervous if their quality of training is too high,” he says, knowing that it’s so often a prelude to injury. This means that his athletes, split between an international contingent and Italians under his charge as the nation’s performance director for Tokyo 2020, spend at least nine months of the year on camp where they are free from energy-sapping distractions. It’s an unapologetic train, eat, sleep, repeat process, only sustainable if you truly love swim, bike and run.
It’s also an environment built on care and consideration. Filliol rarely starts coaching before 8am because of how highly he values sleep for recovery. “The ideal is for them to wake without an alarm,” he says, and there’s constant monitoring and moderating to make sure no one is putting themselves through too much volume and intensity, particularly, as in Stanford’s case, on the run.
Peaking for a one-off performance is not part of the playbook either, despite Filliol’s role with the Italian federation. Instead he’d rather downplay Olympic success, favouring year-round consistency, believing it both healthier for body and mind.
The Leeds way it is not, but it is now Stanford’s chosen path and if it leads to Tokyo 2020 and those few extra vital seconds then it will have been one well worth taking.
“Filliol rarely starts coaching before 8am because of how he values sleep for recovery”