Coffee with Bevan Docherty

Bevan Docherty has been in the press a lot lately, from an awesome 6-page spread in Inside Triathlon, to a New Zealand womens mag! We recently headed over to Taupo for a photo shoot with Bevan and took the opportunity to grab a coffee and find out how things have been going for the double Olympic medallist.

Canterbury swimming faster in blueseventy

We love hearing about athletes who are swimming faster in blueseventy.  Brittany Taylor has been swimming in blueseventy for the last year and we've loved hearing how her times have been dropping in the pool.  Her Dad dropped us a line on how Brittany and blueseventy have been doing in her local region. Thanks for the support guys!

Just a little update... Brittany has just made the under 14 Canterbury Surf Lifesaving team to compete at the Mount on 4th Feb. Last weekend we had the Canterbury Swim Champs, and Brittany came away with 9 medals and 6 Pb's. Her best event is still 50m free in a time of 28:06 which is the 3rd fastest this year for her age group.

When Brittany started to wear her blueseventy NeroTX, she was the only one with them in Canterbury, now there are more girls in her age group wearing them than Speedo, well done, I would like to think its her promotion of them! (NAGS are coming up soon, lol).

Keep up the good work.

Cheers,

Lawrence (dad)

Tech Suits Rule! Win a free swimskin!

And you thought tech suits were banished to the realms of history.  One of the worlds most prestigious open water races, the Rottnest Channel Swim has named our pointzero3 and nero 10km suits as legal for the challenging 19.7km open water race on 26 Feb 2011. 

To celebrate, we are doing a special on the nero 10km and pointzero3 suits through our friends at Aqua Shop Australia, and we’re also going to give away FIVE new textile suits through our facebook competition. 

Find out more on blueseventy swimskins or to buy now click Aqua Shop Australia.


You can also use our handy new guide to swimskin rules to figure out what suit is legal where!

BE IN TO WIN

Hey no one said you had to have one or the other, so we're going to give you the chance to win either a FINA legal neroTX or the WTC approved PZ3TX - there are five chances to win and all you have to do is name an open water swimming event that permits our tech suits!  To enter, just like our facebook page and post your entry on our wall!

Enter our facebook competition here!


Competition runs until 26 Feb 2011, winners announced Monday 27 Feb 2011 on our facebook page.

Second place costs Doddsy more than just the win

Well you already know our boy Jamie Whyte took out Challenge Wanaka on the weekend, but what you might not know is that the weekend was also host to the Wanaka round of the Contact Tri Series, which included an elite criterium style sprint race around the tight streets of Wanaka at dusk.

To make things a little more interesting, blueseventy’s Tony Dodds, who is a hot contender for London 2012 team, threw out a challenge that he would match the prize money of $2,000 NZD to anyone who could beat him on his home soil.  So with $4,000 on the line it was hardly surprising that some of the world’s best triathletes lined up for the sprint race, including Kris Gemmell and Frenchman Laurent Vidal, currently ranked 7^th in the world.

We’ll let Tony tell you how it worked out for him…

The Wanaka race!...well what can I say, I achieved everything (well mostly everything) I wanted to out of this race We got the top triathletes to do it, got the media involved and bought a huuuuge crowd in to watch this race. They were saying there were thousands there so that is awesome!

I must have had 3 or 4 radio interviews leading up to it, then on the day Kris Gemmell and myself had a day out with the media, spinning a few yarns. We went out to a very very rich guys place who actually lives near us and I didn’t even realise! He was hiding in the bush somewhere over looking the Clutha River. We went out there and went clay bird shooting, did some knife throwing (very interesting), and went on the helicopter (the best part). While the TV interviewed us and chatted to us, there was a bit of an entourage around us, which was amazing to be around! The helicopter ride was so cool but we weren't allowed to put any videos up of it because he didn't want everyone to know where he lived, annnnd we were breaking a few rules.

So when that was done and dusted we headed to the race.  It was a very hot night and I just couldn’t get over the crowds that were there!

I got out of the swim first, wasn't too sure if I was going to wear the Axis sleeveless wetsuit or the Helix full suit, but it didn’t matter anyway the blueseventy always comes up first!  Then we got on the bike and we had a good breakaway of 4; myself, Kris Gemmell, Laurent Vidal, and young Aaron Barclay.  We worked quite well together and kept a 34 second lead off the bike.

Off the bike the 1st lap of the run was good and controlled then out of nowhere the Frenchman made his move and BANG he was off, I tried to catch him and even Gemmell commented saying "bloody pansy" or something along those lines as we thought he was gone because he looked very tired and soft on the bike. 

I gave it one more nudge as the crowd was going insane on the final lap, and thought I could catch him, but just wasn't to be. Came 2nd and very proud of it but that's the 3rd time in a row I have came 2nd!!

So now to cough up the money....ha-ha

I know that I am on track and am set for a big season ahead as the Olympic trials come in August!

Thanks everybody for the support out there, everyone has commented on how awesome the crowd was and I'm sure they will come back next year! 

Now it will be on television on TV1 on the 31st January at 3pm, and also sky sport on the 31st January at 7.30pm.

Here is a little clip anyway of what we have got… hope you all enjoy!

breakthrough victory

Rising Kiwi pro triathlete Jamie Whyte fought off massive winds and a tough course to claim the biggest victory of his career with a wire-to-wire win in 9:03:53 at the fifth Challenge Wanka long course triathlon. He dropped us a brief race report:

"I couldn’t have asked for the race to go any better at Challenge Wanaka. In just my second Ironman distance race I have competed in I had a breakthrough result and the perfect race. There was some strong international triathletes competing that have multiple Ironman titles to their names and on a challenging course it was bound to be a tough day. I was at the front for the whole day – all 9 hours in brutally windy conditions.

With the wind already blowing strong first thing in the morning, Lake Wanaka had a significant chop for the 3.8km swim. I wanted to put some pressure on the other pro men in the swim and went out pretty hard establishing a lead bunch of three. I came home strong in the swim and lead out of the water which was a great way to start the day.

I was quickly joined on the bike by the other two members of that lead swim group - Courtney Ogden and Joshua Rix both from Australia. Rix was riding hard early on which seen Ogden slip off the pace after 10km. So the two of us got down to work and started opening up a significant lead of the chasing group behind. By the time we reached Cromwell (at 105km) we had built up a 7 min lead. However Cromwell was also the end of the line for the massive tail wind we had. As we turned the corner to head back to Wanaka we were confronted by a howling head wind. The wind was so strong it even swept Belinda Harper, the leading female in the race at that stage, clean off her bike!

I could sense Rix’s big effort early on was starting to catch up with him and was not riding strong anymore. Some splits to the chase bunch was showing that they were beginning to come back to us, so it was time to move away solo and attempt to hold the advantage we built up.

It was an incredibly hard final 60km solo in to that head wind. I was focused on my power output as my speed was not making for good reading. I led the race into T2 with a four minute advantage.

The run wasn’t pretty but I was able to hold the gap back to the guys chasing. I thought I would have to run at least 3 hours to hang on to the lead, but the conditions had been so hard on the bike and remained very hard for running in, that no one seemed to be running fast. With 2km to go I got my last split – 6 minutes! I was able to ease up and enjoy the finish cute in down town Wanaka. A breakthrough result for me in just my second Ironman distance race.

It was a very special day with my family watching and there to greet me at the finish line.... I am in Ironman recovery mode now. Looking forward to a few weeks of relaxing."

Enjoy it Jamie! From all of us at blueseventy congratulations!

To learn more about Jamie Whyte visit his website.

Jamie Whyte photos by Phil Walter/Getty Images AsiaPac.

New Years Resolution: Improve my swimming.

With the new year usually comes new resolutions, and for those that find swimming the least enjoyable of the three tri disciplines, a really good resolution is to spend some quality time working on that stroke.

Not everyone is blessed to have started swimming before they could walk… gliding effortlessly up and down the pool like it’s the most natural thing in the world.  Some of us look a little less, er, graceful, pounding up and down the pool with maximum effort and minimum results, and usually clocking a few of our lane mates with a wide swung arm in the process.

The best thing to do is get some coaching.  Not just “write a set up on the board and drink coffee” coaching – someone who will actually work with you throughout the session, providing feedback and advice on drills and technique.  I can remember leaving some sessions more mentally exhausted than physically, after concentrating so hard on technique!  Join a local tri or swim squad – masters squads are usually a great place to train and usually have a great balance between training and socialising after!  There are also some great open water coaching programmes like Future Dreams.

But we don’t all have easy access to a coach, so here are some other ideas on how to work on your stroke.

1. Quite often your local tri club will be hiding ex competitive swimmers amongst its ranks.  Those (bleep) athletes that are out of the water and half way round the bike before you even step on dry land.  With a bit of asking around you may find someone suitable to offer a few tips.  Even just working on one aspect of your technique can do wonders.
2. Look online.  There are heaps of great sites that offer tips on everything from open water sighting to great video examples of freestyle technique, and even lane etiquette and tumble turns!  We love the work of Swim Smooth, but you can also find great tips and videos at Go Swim and Tri Swim Coach Online.  Do a bit of googling…
3. Spend quality time in the pool.  There are some really different ideas around about how many km’s a triathlete needs to do in the pool, and it varies on your race distance, but at least consider these few questions

• Do you often miss your scheduled swim sessions?
• Do you swim less often than you bike and run?
• Is swimming your weakness?
4. If you answered yes to all these questions then you probably need to consider making swimming more of a focus for you to improve.  As a guide, three quality swims a week is a minimum for improvement. 
5. So what is “quality”?  Well it’s not leaning on the wall yacking to your mate anyway.  Quality swims (like all your bike and run sessions) should have a purpose.  It can be to work on technique, endurance, strength, speed, or just recovery, but know why you are doing it, pre-plan the sets, and stick to it. 
6. You also need to be “in the moment”.  Cheesy I know, but if your brain is off day-dreaming about your dream bike or planning your day ahead at work, then you are missing much of the benefit.  Swimming is a technique sport – you can’t just potter up and down and think that will make you the next Michael Phelps.  Particularly in technique sets, you need to think through the action and listen to the feedback from your body.  Use a clock for timed sets and stick to rest periods and target times.  Again, if you need advice on what sessions to do, work with a swim or tri coach.  Check out your national federations website if you want advice on finding a coach, or talk to your local club or training mates.

But don’t forget to also just do the odd swim for the pure joy of swimming.  I love heading out for an open water swim at lakes and beaches, not as training per sae but just for the love of being in the water.  Remember all work and no play makes (anything) really dull.