So the 2010 Ironman World Champion Chris "Macca" McCormack is planning on going to the London 2012 Olympics? Yes, it's true, Macca stated yesterday that he wants one last shot at the Olympics. He went on to say:
It the one thing in my career I regret, not making an Olympics,'' McCormack revealed. "This is my last shot. The door swings shut after this.
"I don't know if I am fast enough anymore to win but I'd love to be there to help an Australian win a medal.''
McCormack is currently meeting with officials to work out a plan of attack but will travel to the US, Europe and Asia in April and May chasing the points required to put him back on the road to the Olympics.
"I'm like a kid I'm so excited,''
This is huge in the world of triathlon. It's going to create so much publicity in our sport and that can only be a good thing. But can he actually make the team? To qualify for the Australian team he has to gain ITU ranking points, ok, this might not be too much of a problem; however he's already committed to a race schedule this year which includes lots of long distance racing, including the Abu Dhabi Triathlon, some of the Tristar series races, Challenge Cairns, Pucon 70.3, etc, etc.
But if he does make the team, then what? Don't get me wrong, I love Macca, I think he's a legend in our sport. But can he contribute to a team effort in 2012? I mention a team effort because I think he's simply too slow on the run (in relative terms) to really compete with Gomez and the Brownlee brothers. However, I think he'd make an awesome team member for Team Australia. I think his job would be to swim with the front pack (I think he could just manage that), push a hard bike (he can definitely do that!) whilst protecting the "runner" in the Australian team, thus delivering the "runner" to T2 in great shape to run a low 30 minute 10k. Sounds easy, eh!
I look forward to watching Macca's season unfold - I'm excited!!!!
9 comments:
It would be awesome if he made the Aussie Team.
You're spot on for his racing. He must drop his IM races this year apart from the one he has to do to go to Kona. One of the reasons he was so awesome at Hawaii last year was that he hardly raced at all.
If he isn't using Brett Sutton again already I bet he will be one of his main advisors when trying to combine Oly and IM.
I read somewhere that he's not defending his title at Kona this year, so I guess he'll concentrate on speed and just do the other longer races that he's contracted to do as big training days. If he really wants to make the Aussie team (which is definitely not a certainty) he's gonna have to drop all that long work and step into the hurt box and do lots of threshold work. What do you think coach?
I really can't get excited by this story at all. Zzzzzzzzzzz
T-Man, thats coz you're not a triathlete! ;-)
Lots of debate on Tri Talk about if he can get the speed required. Maybe he's scared Lance would beat him at Kona!!! (Not a chance IMO)
For Macca to forego defending his Kona title is huge. For him to do that with a small chance of getting on the Olympic squad, is a huge risk. Good on him!
I think the team tactics bit will be interesting?
As triathlon is as fundamentally an aerobic sport as you can get and he's been doing the sport at such a high level for so long his basic fitness is unbelieveably high/deep. I reckon he only has to give his swimming some extra emphasis drop his long run down a notch and change one of his harder IM related runs to a hard core faster one and he's on track.
The rhetorical question is how well he can recover from those couple of extra hard swims, runs and all those WC races he'll have to do?
I can't believe that Macca would hold back and let Brad Kahlefeld get a winning break in a Team push if he even had a sniff of victory in London after T2 with his psyche. I'm laughing just thinking about it.
It's going to be an interesting season and if he makes the Olympic team, it'll be an exciting race. Shame the bike course is flat though!
Post a Comment