Adrien Briffod, from Team Atlet, one of the world’s best specialists on the Olympic distance, 5th at the last World Triathlon Championship Finals in Edmonton, is now swimming with an Orca Predator wetsuit supplied by Sportmax. Winner of the Wallisellen triathlon, he gave us his impressions.
Adrien, the beginning of the season was difficult…
Yes, after several months without a triathlon competition, I was finally able to start a race again for the sport I train for all year. This break was due to several factors, firstly my fall at the Karlovy Vary world cup in September 2021 which forced me to stop my season sooner than expected, then at the beginning of March, a few days before my first semi-ironman, I finally caught the little virus that has been going around for the last 2 years and that makes the planet live in slow motion (the Covid). However, during the winter period, I still participated in several running races which confirmed that I was in good shape for this discipline.
So I arrived in Wallisellen to test my form after the Covid and to check the transitions between swimming and cycling and running, to identify the 2-3 points to work on before the big events in May. I had a plan in my head that I wanted to test, which was to swim with the lead and then start on the bike and try to attack to put the bike in the lead, concluding with a good run.
The start of the competition was a bit chaotic, however…
The Wallisellen triathlon has the specificity that the swimming takes place in the pool, so the place you have in the water line after 100m is about the same as the place when you get out of the water. After a strange start – several competitors fall (losing their balance) into the water before the start – I thought we were going to start again, so I didn’t sprint. After 100m I saw that we were going to continue like this and I was 3rd in the water line. However, our line was the fastest so I didn’t need to stress about getting back to the front of my line.
And how did the rest of the race go?
Finally, after the 600m swim, I got out of the water in third place, made a good transition and started first on the bike with a small advantage. Without asking myself too many questions, I decide to start alone and to see if I can stay alone until the second transition. It goes as planned, I manage to stay in the lead on the bike and increase my advantage to a little over 30 seconds. The second transition goes a bit less well than usual because I had a little problem to keep my bike upright and to put on my running shoes because of the cold (the temperature was 8-10 degrees).
On the run I have a good feeling so I set a good tempo. At the end of the first lap, I see that I increase my lead on the second. I keep the same tempo on the second lap to finish 1st in the race with a 45 second margin, running at about 2min55 per kilometre for the 4km run.
What do you retain from this race?
For the following races I should arrive fresher (I had done a big week of training before the race). The swim went well, but I’ll have to see how well I perform in the open water. The bike and the run are on the right track. However, one point to train a bit more is to be perfect on the two transitions, to try to avoid losing 1 or 2 seconds unnecessarily. Thanks Adrien, and congratulations for this victory!