Sam Long admits he was forced to block out the haters last season, as he felt criticism of his swimming skills had resulted in him being classed as ‘the worst swimmer in the sport of triathlon’.

One of the most ebullient characters on the circuit, he says the constant discussion surrounding his abilities in the water ‘hurt’ him and that he is pleased to finally prove a few people wrong after a winter focused on improvement.

His swim at the recent IRONMAN 70.3 Oceanside was his fastest ever at that distance; confidence in a discipline where he accepts there have been issues in the past is starting to grow as his results continue to improve.

Focus is now on the Pro Series

Long spent much of the last two seasons switching between the T100 Triathlon World Tour and the IRONMAN Pro Tour, but has decided to focus solely on the M-Dot brand events this year as he seeks more consistency in his performances.

His results at 100km were nowhere near as impressive as those at 70.3. He raced ten times on the T100 circuit, achieving only two podiums as runner-up in his first two events at Miami and Singapore in 2024. That same two-period, however, saw him win five 70.3 races and finish second in the other two that he took part in.

His T100 stats lay bare the issues that he has had with the swim; in those ten races, his best split was a 26:34 at London in 2024, where he came out of the water in last place. Indeed, his best swim in terms of position among the 20-man field heading into T1 was 18th – in the other nine, he was either last or second-to-last.

In stark contrast, he was among the top ten cyclists seven times and missed the top ten in the running stats just once.

His hard work over the past 12 months, however, seems to be paying off, with improvements clearly visible as far back as the Nice World Championships, his second place at IRONMAN Arizona, and then his encouraging split at Oceanside.

Two weeks ago in California, he came out of the water in 24:25, compared to 25:36 in 2024, 25:38 in 2018, and 27:13 in 2017. Progress is clearly being made.

Oceanside was fastest-ever swim split

“It’s my fastest 70.3 split ever. So, I’m extremely pleased with that,” he says in his latest YouTube video vlog, which is embedded in this story below. “I was very confident I would swim under 25 minutes. And it comes maybe as a shocker to the community.

“So if I could go back to last season, I think doing the T100, in a way, really hurt the perception of me last year. And it was really hard to deal with the narrative, and the story became that I suck at swimming and that I’m the worst swimmer in the sport of triathlon that I’ve ever seen.

“I had to basically have hater blockers on and trust my own abilities because in the last races, I’ve made progress. The IRONMAN World Championships in Nice was decent, and then IRONMAN Arizona was better, and then 70.3 LO was better, and now this one was the best one yet, which is after a whole winter of process and improvement.

“And I know it’s a saltwater swim; I know it’s a wetsuit. I know there’s progress to be made, especially as the non-wetsuit swims will be a little harder… So I’m motivated to keep working.”

‘I was so mad at myself’

Long would go on to set a new bike course record at Oceanside as he went ‘all in for the win’ and attempted to give himself as much of a lead as possible over dangerman Kristian Blummenfelt. As it turned out, the Norwegian powerhouse overhauled both him and fellow leader Jonas Schomburg (GER) with a stunning run that left the whole field in his wake.

Having been caught just 300 metres from the line by Casper Stornes (NOR), Long didn’t even make the podium of a race which had for so long seemed within his grasp of winning. While proud of his performance, he was still angry at the basic mistakes which cost him dearly.

“I was so mad at myself. I’m still so mad at myself for not being able to close it out,” he says. “Am I mentally weak? Did I lose this race because I’m an absolute beta, because I gave up, or because I couldn’t will myself?

“I remember the race. I remember the final two miles. My body was shutting down. I was thinking I was going to have to walk. My body was telling me, ‘Hey, you’re done’. I pumped my arms as fast as I could, hoping it would make my legs go faster, hoping it would make me go faster.

“Casper comes by. I try to pick it up. I tried to will myself to sprint, but I didn’t. So, I have to carry that with me.”

‘I was good for 3 hours and 30 minutes’

While his next race is the star-studded IRONMAN Texas later this month, Long believes the lessons learned from Oceanside will serve him well as he progresses with further 70.3 races this season – with nutrition being one of the key aspects where he needs to get things right.

“Obviously, I was going hard, and I was feeling the pressure from KB, and so I was doing lots of surges, and I didn’t have my power meter on the bike, so I was probably doing surges on the bike to pass the 20 metres,” he said. “So all these surges did add up, but I also think it was a nutritional error.

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“I normally keep really methodical notes, but I didn’t have any from 70.3 La Quinta. I had T100 notes. But that is not 70.3. And that’s part of the problem. I’m used to racing T100 and not 70.3.

“That extra duration, I was good for 3 hours and 30 minutes. That’s longer than any T100 race, and I cracked in the final 12 minutes. I went with 330 grams of carbs on the bike, which I now believe is too few for a guy my size

“And then on the run, I didn’t want to spend the time to put the nerd belt on in transition, which was another super, super folly mistake. Five seconds that I could have spent, and then I would have had my nutrition. So then, no nerd belt. I just carried one gel – I needed at least two, if not three.

“So then I’m just running low. And I just, frankly, was running out of gas at the end because it was just a super frustrating experience. But we live to fight another day. I’m super excited. I feel extremely motivated.”