- [Narrator] San Fransisco, home to the Golden Gate Bridge,
Alcatraz, and some rather big hills.
And just a one hour drive south,
GTN are off to meet Zwift, to find out about
a rather exciting project.
(Ambient guitar music)
- Now I'm sure most of you are well acquainted
with Zwift already, or at least you've heard of it.
But for those for haven't, it was once
a small startup cycling gaming company.
It's since taken the indoor training world by storm.
It's got a huge online community where athletes
can train together on a range of routes.
GTN have been invited to meet the winning contestants
of the new Specialised Zwift Triathlon Academy.
They're gonna be passed through their paces,
and guided by someone who knows
a little bit about triathlon, Tim Don.
(Calm ambient music)
- [Narrator] This was a three day training camp,
and the first time the winners had ever gotten together.
With the help of Specialised, these age groupers
would be getting new kit, new bikes
and even wind tunnel tested,
in preparation for them all attempting to qualify
for the Ironman World Champs in Kona 2018.
I was really interested to find out how they got on,
and find out a little bit more about them
and their stories.
- [Rachael] My name is Rachael Norfleet,
and I am from Kansas City.
So I just graduated from college,
about a month and a half ago, so, day to day,
just kind of job searching right now
and figuring out my next steps,
but a lot of training right now,
we've got Kona in about 15 weeks,
so, lot of that at the moment.
(Electronic ambient music)
I started triathlon about four and a half years ago.
A mum that I was babysitting for, actually,
she would go out on these like five hour bike rides,
and I thought that she was crazy,
and I had just stopped swimming in college,
and she could tell that I, kind of,
was at this like, loss of identity not having my sport,
so she eventually kind of like,
whipped me into doing triathlon with her,
so, I've been doing it ever since.
(Ambient electronic music)
- [Winner] I think I'd come back in from doing a long,
my longest brick session to date,
and I just looked at my phone,
and I had an email from kind of Zwift,
and I was like, what's this?
And it said like, Zwift Academy as the headline,
and, yeah, I read it and my mouth just dropped open,
I was like, oh my word.
My name's Bex Rimmington, and I'm from
a small town in Lancashire called Padiham.
So I had a brief spell in triathlon back in 2005,
and then I got talent spotted for cycling,
so I've been cycling for the last 10 years,
and then, had a little bit of a crash last year,
so, yeah, decided in October, I promised myself
I would always do an Ironman, so,
yeah, here I am signed up for Ironman Bolton
in a couple of weeks.
(Water flowing)
(Electronic ambient music)
I was doing a stage race in the Czech Republic,
and apparently someone hit a pothole,
I was the second line to go down,
ended up with like 20 people on top of me,
tried to push myself up and I went,
nope that's not good, and turns out
I'd broken right wrist, and then broken my left ankle.
So I was in plaster for 12 weeks,
and it kind of got to the end of September,
I was still in plaster and I was like,
am I gonna be able to race in the bunch next year,
and I thought long and hard about it
and I thought probably not, and I knew if,
kind of to get better and to get stronger
I had to do some cross training,
so I started doing some running,
rehab my ankle, started swimming to rehab my wrist
and I was like, I'm already riding a bike, so,
let's kind of go back to the beginning
and fulfil that challenge of doing the Ironman,
so, here I am.
D'yknow, I've never raced for this kind
of duration before, so, yeah, I'm thinking
as long as I'm sensible and realistic,
and, yeah, just kind of take one thing at a time,
then, yeah, hopefully it'll be okay,
but yeah, it's quite daunting racing
for that length of time but hopefully I'll be okay.
- [Narrator] So, here we are.
Out in California to follow these budding age groupers,
as they chase down the dream of competing at Kona.
We've met the female athletes,
and we will shortly be meeting the male competitors.
But firstly, let me explain a little about
what will happen in the next few days.
Because this road to Kona is not your ordinary set up.
Firstly, each member is given their kit.
A bike, a helmet, shoes, wetsuit, you name it.
In fact, so much that some members
had trouble flying it home.
Whoops!
Next, they're set up with Retul,
with experts on hand from Specialised
to hone in their bike positions,
before getting to test them out in the wind tunnel.
Yeah, the full pro treatment.
After that, they all go out on a ride
to test out their new positions.
And, I'll go too, y'know, just to test them.
(Panting)
So just how far can you help and push
a bunch of very good age groupers.
Even with this help, they still have other commitments.
Families and jobs to contend with.
As we all know, the balancing of these things is hard work.
And with that, it's time to meet
the first of our male competitors.
- [Geert] My name is Geert Janssens,
it's a typical Belgian name, and I'm from Belgium,
I'm from Leuven, it's next to Brussels.
In Belgium I work as a police officer,
so the combination of working
and training can be quite hard.
I started triathlon when I was,
eight years I think, I did my first Ironkid
when I was eight, and it was my father
who brought me in to the sport.
Two weeks ago I became proud father of my daughter Pipa.
It is a little bit difficult to combine
the work, the training and the task of being a father,
but my wife is very supportive,
and we have made some arrangements,
as I can say, and until my next next big goal,
Ironman Hamburg, and then until Kona,
so it's a bit difficult to combine but it is possible.
- [Narrator] Geert, along with Rachael knows first hand
just how difficult it can be to make it to Kona,
and what sacrifices need to be made to make it.
This is in fact Geert's second year
in a row training for the Ironman World Champs.
- Yeah, so last year I was in Kona,
I had a very, very good swim, got out of the water,
and started to feel great on the bike from the beginning,
and then on the downhill from, after Hawai'i,
was very fast, and I was, tried to eat
and drink, and then suddenly their was a crosswind,
and my front wheel turned, and I was going very fast,
about 60, 70 kilometres an hour,
and I crashed, and while falling down
I immediately realised the race was over.
If there's one race I would really like
to finish, it's definitely Kona.
(Lighthearted music)
- [Winner] It was five o'clock,
and because we had like this time gap,
and I was just getting up and then
just received the email, and I was just screaming,
and I think I waked the whole house,
and just, made a little party there.
It was just awesome, really.
Hi. My name is Golo Rohrken, I'm 30 years old,
and I'm coming from Hamburg in Germany.
I'm a physician, I finished my medical studies last year,
and I coach some athletes.
I'm coming from a cycling background,
and I had borrowed my bike from my dad,
and I crashed on the very first round,
but I managed to finish the race,
and it was an awesome feeling.
I really have to pinch myself to
be a part of this incredible journey
and team and to have the chance
to compete with these great athletes
and to have people like Tim Don who are just coaching you,
is just an incredible experience and chance for me.
(Ambient guitar music)
I would say my end goal in triathlon
is to maybe won the age group title in Kona someday.
(Laughs)
Yeah, but also to have fun with other athletes
and to just share, share your experiences.
(Ambient guitar music)
- [Narrator] The finale for this project,
Zwift hope, is to have all the athletes competing
at Kona for their age group.
For Bex and Rachael who have already qualified,
this reality is getting ever closer,
and both potentially have a chance
of topping their age groups.
For Geert and Golo, however,
the chance of winning is slightly less.
- The competition between me and Golo,
actually it's kind of funny,
because we're in the same age group.
But, yeah, Golo is a very nice guy,
but I won't let him win, that's for sure.
He will, I will give it my all,
but I expect him to do the same thing,
so it's kinda friendly, but it's a competition in the team.
But I'm happy that, normally he wanted
to do Ironman Hamburg as well.
So to try to qualify, being in the same project now,
would be kind of sad because when one of the two
wouldn't qualify, because of the other,
that's kind of sad because I think we both wanna go,
and we like to go, and we want also the other to go to Kona,
but once in Kona we will try to be the best.
That's part of the sport as well.
(Ambient guitar music)
- [Narrator] This clearly, for the athletes,
is quite a bit deal.
They've been given every chance
by Zwift and Specialised to help them achieve their goals,
and to have the likes of Tim Don on board,
sharing his experiences is priceless.
Someone who's had some incredible career highlights,
but has also had some huge knockbacks,
not forgetting his big crash ahead of
the 2017 Ironman World Champs that left
him severely injured for several months.
- [Tim] Hi, my name's Tim Don,
I am a professional triathlete for the last 21 years.
Yeah it was the, it was the Wednesday before Kona,
and I was riding out easy past
the airport in the cycle lane,
and a car coming towards me turned in front of me,
meaning either, I don't know I haven't heard
or spoke to him, he either didn't see me,
didn't appreciate how slow or fast I was going,
I remember seeing it, rememberin it was
a white pickup truck with a logo on the door.
I remember locking my back wheel going
"no, these are my new tyres" and the next thing
I remember I was being lifted,
y'know, from the road into an ambulance.
I was like, oh bugger this is not good,
and then, yeah, the doctor came in and said,
yeah, I'd broken my neck and I was like,
"Ah, I don't think I'm racing."
And yeah, they gave me three options,
and unfortunately, the one that
they highly recommended was called a halo, and yeah,
that was my life for the next three months, basically.
Zwift to me, it just enabled me to do what I love,
and that was train, and don't get me wrong,
I literally was riding at 90 watts for, literally,
I think the first ride was 80 watts at five minutes,
but, it gave me purpose I think.
Y'know, from being on such a high, from breaking
the world record, getting third at the World 70.3's,
to physically and mentally being in such a great place,
y'know I felt, I believed I could fight for a podium,
and then to go from there to such a low,
and then with the halo on, I couldn't do anything,
and I didn't want to go in the basement
and ride my trainer, y'know, on my own,
and y'know, as I said, Fraser suggested Zwift
so, yeah, I hooked it up and yeah,
it just made it interested, it made it fun,
and as I got fitter and more able to do more,
it gave me metrics, and I love the data,
I love the numbers and yeah, it's um
I always say, y'know, lots of people old school
don't, would never, I said, you gotta try it,
that's all I recommend, try it, make your own decision up,
that's all I can recommend to everyone.
(Energetic ambient music)
- [Bex] I've always wanted to do Ironman,
so, yeah, that's always kind of been a dream of mine.
I think I just wanna see where this journey can go,
just enjoy it and, yeah, see what happens,
so, yeah, haven't got a plan or an ultimate aim
but, yeah, I'm just gonna enjoy it.
- [Rachael] What is fun for me
about triathlon is just that there always is a goal,
there's always something that you're chasing,
and there's always something that you can do better,
and there are so many factors that play into it,
and I think that's really fun.
- Well, I guess that's our time in California done,
and it's been an amazing few days,
meeting the team and just seeing their commitment
and dedication, and also the professionalism of the team.
How's it been guys?
- Great - Great
- It's been good - Super
- Awesome.
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- Woo!
(Laughing)