Georgia Taylor-Brown may be the most decorated female Olympic triathlete of all time.
And the winner of Supertri Chicago last year, when she beat none other than Olympic champion – and Crown Racing teammate – Cassandre Beaugrand.
But she’s keen to slightly play down expectations ahead of this weekend’s race as she continues to enjoy a more relaxed year in between Olympic cycles.
TRI247 spoke to her on Thursday evening ahead of Saturday’s race in the ‘Windy City’ and next week we’ll be hearing about her thoughts on LA2028 as well as her T100 learnings from London.
‘I’m really enjoying it’
But for now it’s all about Supertri, though it’s clear she’s taking a relatively chilled approach to racing this year.
She told us: “I would like to do well still but I also don’t expect to do well because I know that I haven’t really done the training. I’m training, but I’m not doing specific training. So you realise there’s quite a big difference between just doing the miles and actually doing the specific work.
“But I am really enjoying it. It’s nice to go into races so relaxed.”
And while she may be labelling it a “year off”, it’s not exactly feet up on the sofa. Just take the next seven weeks: “I can’t remember the order, but I think I’ve got Chicago Supertri, Frejus for the T100 and then a French Grand Prix race.
“I’m going to do the British Gravel Champs, because that’s just at Dalby Forest so that’ll be easy to get to fun to do.
“Then another French Grand Prix race and then two more Supertri races, including Jersey. That was one big reason I came back to Supertri this year – when I saw that Jersey was back on the calendar. So, yeah, there’s a bit of everything!
“I think the hard part now will be doing Supertri this weekend and then backing that up next weekend with Frejus because I think that’s going to be a quite a hard course. But, yeah, I’m up for the challenge.”
Back in the mix
Asked how Supertri compares to T100 [she made her debut in London a fortnight ago but was stalled by a puncture] and if she can repeat her win in Chicago from last year, especially as there’s no Beaugrand this time, Georgia told us: “I do think for me, I’m probably more in the mix for Supertri.
“You can kind of get away with not doing the super specific training. At T100 you can do the training that I have been doing, which is just a lot of mileage and not anything super fast. Whereas if I go to the middle, which is World Triathlon, you do have to do the specific stuff for that because it’s just a bit of an awkward distance.
“It might take a miracle on Saturday, but I’ll give it my best shot. Last year everyone did the whole series whereas this year is a little bit different just because of the timings of the races with World Triathlon and everything else.
“I know this course, I know what I need to do. And it’s back to the Enduro format too which I think suits me a little bit better.
“So I’m excited and I think it was nice to be able to do Toronto and just get back into the swing of things – doing the super fast stuff again and knowing what that feels like because like I said, I haven’t done the training for the fast stuff.
“I do really enjoy doing that top end speed and just completely emptying myself because I’ve just been doing a lot of tempo stuff and like just tapping away.
“But now I know what paces I need to do and what it feels like, I can get back into that rhythm a little bit more. So now I’m excited – last week in training I did some faster sessions on the run and the bike and I forgot how much I enjoy those kind of sessions.”
- Check back next week for Georgia’s London learnings at the T100 – and the clearest indication yet that she’s set to go all in for LA2028.
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