Tim Don is widely regarded as the shrewdest Super League / Supertri manager of all time.
He jumped ship from Podium Racing to Brownlee Racing this year and clearly sprinkled his magic dust on his new team – they won both races in the season opener in Toronto thanks to Alex Yee and Jolien Vermeylen.
The latter was a super-shrewd acquisition and won on debut and we’ll be chatting to Tim in more detail next week about the way the whole recruitment process works in terms of putting a squad together. As well as getting his unique take on what he calls a “generational talent” in Alex Yee.
But the focus right now is Saturday’s stop in Chicago…
Surprises in store
And the obvious first question is how they will fare without their race one winners, who aren’t in the ‘Windy City’ for race two.
As you’d expect, it’s clear there’s not only a plan B but plenty more besides: “I think lots of surprises. I mean, I think this is going to be one of the most exciting Supertri races because it’s not the Hayden [Wilde] and Alex [Yee] show – or Cassandre [Beaugrand].
“Genuinely, who knows what’s going to happen? There’s not so much swim power in the men’s, there’s quite a bit in the women’s, but I think it’s underrated, so it’s going to go under the radar. I think we’re going to see not a surprise, but a young podium, potentially one of the youngest.
“But I think with Brownlee Racing, there’s a potential that I think six of our eight athletes could definitely get a top 10.”
‘Get that fire going’
The next question that has to be asked concerns one of them. Olympic legend Jonny Brownlee, with all three medals to his name, was in the uncharacteristic position of being eliminated early on in Toronto.
“I think I made every mistake in the book” was Jonny’s honest assessment afterwards and Tim reckons the bounce back will happen on Saturday.
He told us: “I think if Jonny hadn’t raced Toronto, he would be the favourite for this race. And I think we just need Jonny to think that was just an outlier.
“We haven’t spoken in depth about this, but he’s fit. He’s really fit. He’s always is. He’s really conditioned.
“And I know when I got to the later stages of my short course, I became a little bit complacent. It’s like, I’m on the feet, I’m in the lead group. As opposed to going, no, I want to be at the front of that.
“And I think with him doing the long course, you know, the ferocity, the shoulder to shoulder racing isn’t quite the same. If you watch the swim in Toronto, everyone’s in a pack and there’s two people swimming wide, and one of those was Jonny. And I’m like, dude, man, get in there. So we really need to get that fire going.
Watch out for Fanni
“But I think it was a shock in a good way for him. He went home, he can resettle. You know him, and with his wife Fi they have a baby on the way. They’ve got some very nice distractions. He can like train, distraction, train.
“I had coffee with him earlier today and I think he knows there’s an opportunity to win. And you know what, he’s never won a Supertri race. He’s got plenty of podiums and gone super close but never won one.”
And when we suggest that it also underlines that Supertri is no respecter of reputation, with little margin for error, Tim adds: “That’s what I’m telling these juniors. I’m saying, look, it’s an opportunity. It is an opportunity here. Don’t give an inch to anyone. You know this is your time.
“If these young athletes get it right, I think they’re going to be putting some of the senior athletes on the back foot.”
Asked who could be his wildcard this weekend, there’s no hesitation: “We’ve, got Fanni [Szalai] for this race. She won the last Bundesliga and the one before that she had a sprint with Lisa Tertsch. I was so chuffed when I was speaking to her dad a couple of weeks ago when we needed an extra person that she was interested in racing.
“She’s really matured a lot in how she executes her race and I hope that really comes through this weekend.”
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