The Pho3nix Sub7 and Sub8 Project, Powered by Zwift is a moment in time that has been three long years in the making, and may well go down as a chapter in the evolution of human athletic endeavor. Here are a few choice excerpts from the press conference held on Thursday, June 2nd, 2022.
Sebastian Kulczyk, founder of the Pho3nix Foundation:
I don’t know if I should be even sitting here among such amazing athletes and stars. You know, I’m just the guy trying to support it. So the spotlight should be definitely on all these amazing athletes here. So I’ll be very, very brief.
Our job is to assist and inspire children to be active and to develop the life skills that sport brings. We want to ignite this flame for the next generation to help children dream and make those dreams come true – fulfill their ambitions and find the real potential. Sport can help in that sport can be the tool to develop that. That’s what we are trying to do. And by events like this, we are trying to show the world that anything is possible. If you have a dream, if you work really hard, like these athletes here, you can achieve the impossible, you can Defy The Impossible and become someone special, someone unique.
Wojciech Kruczynski, COO of Mana Global:
Managing events such as this one is what we do [at Mana Global]. We also manage athletes and help athletes around the world, but with Pho3nix, it’s a foundation, but we are able to develop worldwide projects: Pho3nix Kids events organised around the world, education program programs to inspire young generations. Also the mentoring programs such as Pho3nix Future camps, and many other things that we do: working with the Pho3nix Athletes Program to support athletes around the world so they can actually do what they want to do. And the dreams become actually real.
We are actually very proud as well to work with others like managing the Bahrain Endurance 13, and also working with Super League Triathlon and developing many other projects around the world lately. We also started operation and partnership with Araya International worldwide in terms of organization of friendly football matches for Brazil and Argentina. Last few years have been very busy. We are aiming very high. We’re looking at the sky and thinking there’s no limits, and this is who we are or what we do.
Chris McCormack, CEO of Mana Global:
I’m just excited that the day’s finally here. It was a crazy idea that we came up with about two and a half years ago in Bahrain. And I was really inspired at the table that day, with Daniela Ryf, who was a current world champion. There was Jan Frodeno [who] was a world champion. There was Alistair Brownlee. There was Mo Farah. There was Mark Cavendish. And we were talking about originally breaking eight hours for the women. Was it possible? And the boys put their hands up and said, what about seven hours? And we all laughed and said, come on guys. It’s impossible. And then I think we were all moved by the fact that Mo Farah, who’s one of the greatest runners of all time, and Mark Cavendish suddenly got engaged in this conversation around our sport.
And they started swapping numbers and we saw all the athletes together. We sat back and went, “Wow, you know, this is pretty cool.” And Sebastian put his hand up and said, let’s do it. Let’s have a crack if you wanna do it, why don’t we do it? Let’s put the project together.
So to think that was pre-COVID and we marched through COVID and got here, and athletes like Kristian and Nicola and Lucy and Kat and Joe,when we asked them, they said, ‘Yeah, let’s have a crack at this. I’d love the opportunity.’ So I’m just excited to be here as a former athlete, just sitting back and watching, I would never have imagined what athletes are capable of doing.
Nicola Spirig:
I started a kids series in Switzerland back in 2014 because my coach and myself thought I should do something with the Olympic championship title. I should inspire kids. I should inspire other people. And after that, we started a foundation in Switzerland to actually achieve the same goal as the Pho3nix Foundation to just get as many kids as possible active, to show them that sports can have so much benefit for them even in normal life, like learn to achieve a goal, not give up if there are some problems, just very little things that you can learn easily in sports. And when I met Sebastian and when Chris McCormack asked me to be part of this project, it just fit because we could have a cooperation with the Foundation, with the kids series, and I had this new sports challenge.
I think it’s great to have in my last year to have such a challenge, again, such a huge project. So it was really fun to prepare for it. What would it mean for me? I mentioned it before, for me it would mean a lot to inspire other people to do the same. I mean, I’m 40 years old, I’m having three kids. I have a 25-year career. And it just shows that you can achieve a lot if you really go for it and you really give a lot to achieve it. And I hope that inspires other people to do the same with their dreams, their hopes, their goals.
To be the first one to break eight hours, of course, sporting-wise would be a huge success. I wouldn’t compare it with my other successes because becoming Olympic champion and things like that is completely different. And my biggest achievements are my three kids. So that’s unbeatable anyway. So I will be happy if I break the 8 hours or not, but it would be a good way to go out of the sport.
Lucy Buckingham [Team Nicola]:
I’ve been a massive admirer of Nicola over the years. It’s nearly 10 years since we raced in London in 2012. And yeah, we were on different opposing sides, I guess. But I think Nicola is the definition of true grit and determination and to be on Nicola’s team I’m just really privileged.
I’ve raced the last two weekends back-to-back in The Championship in Samorin and then Challenge St. Poulten the Sunday just gone. So I’m getting a bit fitter and I’m actually going to be on the bike in team Nicola. And we’ve been practicing on the track today with Imogen [Simmonds] and a few of the other girls. I’m really excited as well, because I think we’re in good shape.
Kat Matthews:
I’ve come from team sports. And my background is also with the Army and as a physiotherapist. So communication, teamwork, loyalty, everything that goes as a team is, I guess, my bread and butter, my passion. And now triathlon is my profession and career. And so this event merges the two in a way that I don’t think we – well, we haven’t ever seen, and I’m not sure if we will ever see again. So yeah, having the team element of this event is why it sparks my interest.
And specifically with Ruth [Astle], I think Ruth and I actually wererivals when we were both age groupers in 2018. And our coaches both had this sort of rivalry that, you know, ‘Oh, she’s gonna win at the age group world champs.’ And then we’ve both come through as professional in our first ironman together, and then we’ve raced ever since and done training camps. So to then be part of a team with Ruth is like a bit of a dream, so thanks Pho3nix.
Ruth Astle [Team Kat]:
I’ve also come from team sports. Actually being part of a team again is really fun. And I think our team in particular, we seem to have bonded really well. It’s been really fun, which I think is quite a key element when you’ve got a long day ahead, that it is going be fun at times, maybe not all the time, but yeah, I’m really looking forward to it. We’ve practiced a lot on the track. We’ve got our turns all reasonably nailed now and I think we’re all really excited to just see how fast we can go to give Kat the best buffer coming onto the run.
Joe Skipper:
Initially when I found out on Friday, I rang [Alistair]. I spoke to him through WhatsApp and then had a chat with him on the Saturday just to see what the lowdown was on the team. You know, like what was there, what tactics were they planning? Did they have any tricks up the sleeve with kit and stuff? Cause there’s been a lot of talk regarding more buoyant wetsuits and all that, loads of small things. So I was picking his brains on that and also seeing what his plan was going to be for how he’d take on Kristian and trying to see what he thought, if he had any tips for me on how I could go as fast as possible.
What you’ve got to look out for is the surges, how much they take out of you every time you come around the corner, or if people change, there can be bits of surges to respond to. And it’s just seeing how much they take out of you before you start the run. Because obviously when you’re going 54 kilometers an hour, if you lose a meter or two meters and you’ve got to close it, you can only do that so many times and you don’t want to fatigue too much. Or even towards the end, once you get two and a half hours in, if the gap goes from two meters to five meters, you might actually find it hard to get back on so you’ve just got to be concentrating the whole time. And then the team’s got to be really smooth. So that’s part of the process from being out here, practicing with the lads in the run up to the event is just trying to get it to work as smooth as possible.
Alex Dowsett [Team Joe]:
Effectively, a team time trial is an aspect to the sport I really love. So when Alistair reached out and asked if I would be interested in being part of his team, I said yes, immediately. And no, it’s been awesome. This is a phenomenal circuit. It’s really fun to go fast.
You have to give it [112 miles] a lot of respect. In some ways it makes it easier than a team time trial; in most other ways, it makes it harder. In the ways that it’s easier, you have to bring the intensity down a little bit. Everyone that’s coming in from the cycling aspect is out of all of our comfort zones. But Alistair had faith that we were still the best place to deliver him, and obviously now to deliver Joe. But yeah, it’s gonna be long. And I think after doing a few runs for an hour, hour and a quarter, which is still further than we’re used to, we all came away [saying] like this is good, but three hours twenty’s going to be a long time.
Kristian Blummenfelt:
It’s been two years’ journey to try, first of all to find a good pacing team for the bike. Cause I think the bike is the crucial part in the race. Getting in contact with Matt [Bottrill], who’s been building the team together, a lot of support from Cadex to build a special bike for this event. And also all the testing we do, we have had now almost a year of long distance training. So I would say we are learning almost week by week and it would be my third full distance on Sunday. So it will be good.
I think 2:25 [for the run] is like a safe zone. I did 3:45 [per km] pace in St. George, a very hilly one. And I think if I kind of equal that on a flat course, it’s close to 3:30 per K. So I think I can even drop that with the help of the bike team. So hopefully we’re looking at 3:25 per K if I’m feeling fresh, if I’m feeling good, maybe we can drop it down to 3:20. But you don’t wanna drop it down too early… Hopefully I will try to get into the end of the 20K mark before picking up the pace.
Well, we haven’t done it yet, but Olav [Kristian’s coach] wants to collect my poo to measure how much of the calories is left after I’ve eaten and combined with measuring the pee to see how much I’ve been burning over the night. But, so far we have just been measuring the pee over a two-week period.
Matt Bottrill [Team Kristian]:
Obviously Kristian’s got an obsession with winning, we’ve got an obsession with winning. So it was the perfect combination really. And yeah, it’s been a project around the new Cadex bike and trying to bring that combination together and then just selecting athletes. Yes, there is this rivalry about who’s going to go fastest on the bike, but ultimately this is triathlon. It’s all about swim, bike, run. We just want the fastest time possible. We want to go Sub-7, but we’ve also come here to win this thing. And that’s what it’s all about, really. No one’s going to be talking about who did the fastest bike, swim or run at the end of this. It’s the combination of all three, and it’s been an amazing project, you know, I’ve loved every minute.
I’m probably the oldest man in the race at 45 years of age. So I’ve got quite wide shoulders. I love the job of looking after Kristian, especially on the bike. So I’m excited to be involved… and then just bringing all the athletes that have, I’ve raced with them for years… So it’s been nice to kind of combine all of that and, and just, yeah, unify the team. And I think we have got a very special bond. We’ve just spent a week in Amsterdam training together and then we’ve come out here and we know that there’s no stone unturned. And when we’re on that start line, I can say there’s nothing else that we could have done. It’s going to be a proud moment come Sunday. So I think we’re ready.
