His inner team had dubbed it ‘Mission Impossible’ themselves – which underlined the scale of difficulty – but even so there still appears a degree of frustration and disappointment that Kristian Blummenfelt wasn’t able to successfully defend his Olympic title in Paris this summer.
Moving up from short course to full distance is tricky enough – at least at the levels Blummenfelt and Norwegian training partner Gustav Iden have done – but it has been achieved by a very select group of athletes.
But then attempting to drop down the other way after winning IRONMAN World Championship titles, now that was unprecedented.
It’s exactly the sort of challenge the incredible Norwegian duo and their acclaimed coach Olav Aleksander Bu have relished as they’ve rewritten the triathlon record books in recent years.
So now that the dust has settled what does Bu think are the key learnings – and does he still believe it’s possible?
First, unprecedented success
In the latest part of an in-depth interview with TRI247 [you can read the first part here] it becomes clear that the well-documented bumps in the road with the Norwegian Federation in the build-up to Paris contributed to a different dynamic compared to Tokyo, where Blummenfelt had sprinted clear of Alex Yee late on to take the title.
Bu explains: “Going towards the top allows you to be – or allowed us to be – very focused on what we did. Then when you get to the top there started to be things that were outside of our control.
“Being at the top requires so much energy and dedication to what you do, that if there starts to be energy leaks or a little bit of negativity and other things like this, it’s almost impossible to be the best. We started to slip on intensity control because basically we were exhausted.
“I think leading into Tokyo a lot of things were new for us because we obviously started to win races [Blummenfelt was a three-time winner of 70.3 Bahrain while Iden landed a brilliant 70.3 Worlds title in 2019 ahead of Alistair Brownlee] but the clear big goal at that time was still the Olympics, that was the thing that we really wanted.
“And that meant that looking back at that time, we were all super sharp and committed to doing simulations or trying to do everything as well as possible in terms of heat preparations, course preparations, technology preparations, all these kind of things.
“And then after Tokyo obviously Kristian won the WTCS Grand Final in Edmonton and the series, Gustav won the 70.3 Worlds again and we were also going towards trying to win the IRONMAN World Championship within one year.”
Before 2021 was out Kristian had set the record IRONMAN time in Cozumel and Gustav had blitzed the field on his full-distance debut in Florida, meaning that it actually wasn’t a huge surprise when that audacious plan to win the IMWC a year after the Olympics came off in spectacular style.
For not only did Kristian win the rescheduled 2021 race in St George in May 2022, Gustav would then produce a record-breaking display to triumph in Kona in late 2022. And Kristian added the 70.3 World Champs to the haul too!
Next, ‘Mission Impossible is born’
So no wonder Olav admits: “We now felt, okay, we need to set a ‘Mission Impossible’ goal to try to, let’s say, motivate us to repeat the process. I think we’ve been very open about. I think even in one interview we actually used that phrase – a ‘Mission Impossible’ of going back down in distance towards the Olympics.
“But I think it wasn’t enough. It really wasn’t enough. And I think the process showed signs of that. It lacked a little bit of the focus or dedication that was needed.
“Kristian needed distractions. So for him last year, 2023, it was hard for me to say that no, you need to focus on the Olympics and only do that.
“Of course one could also say afterwards if we’re going to do short course we do 100% short course and not do other things in between as well.
“And also, when you come to this year you hope there’s going to be more racing but suddenly you are left with one bullet in your magazine and you just have to hope that that’s good enough.”
Tokyo runner-up Alex Yee shows the way in Paris
So onto Paris then – and what shape was Kristian in? “He was 5, 6% fitter leading into Paris than he was in Tokyo but they were two completely different races, with the swim in Paris so important [Kristian was nearly a minute behind compared to less than 30 seconds in Tokyo].”
Tokyo runner-up Yee had come out of the water five seconds behind Blummenfelt there but in Paris he was 23 seconds ahead of him and Olav adds: “We did good assessments, we knew a little bit what the strategy had to be but, to be honest, Alex had done a much better job at preparing for the currents in the Seine.
“How they prepared [the Team GB training camp was in Libourne, chosen for its river currents] for that was even something we discussed, but there was not the willingness to do that.
“Alex’s win was so well deserved with all the effort, with all the work that they did there – and with the tactics, with teamwork becoming increasingly important.
“That preparation was the thing we were extremely good at. Leading into Tokyo. Leading into Cozumel, leading into St George, then Kona and St George again [for the 70.3 Worlds]. But I think also doing this in a very small team, it costs a lot of energy and you need all the positivity you can get – basically you can’t have energy leakages. And that’s where I just have to say hats off to Alex and the work they did there. It was a masterclass. It is exactly how it should be done.
“Of course then you can always say, well, does it really matter? Like how much do you really gain from it? But it does matter because if you have a process and everybody is aligned towards it, you’re just going to do whatever it takes to get it right.
‘Tough pill to swallow’
“But I have to say that what annoys me the most is that we now know that it was possible and we didn’t do it. That is also a very tough pill to swallow because if it was a case of this actually was ‘Mission Impossible’ then you’d say okay, fine, we did our best.
“But when you really feel that you sit there with the answer in your hand, that’s actually taken me quite a while to accept.”
So does that mean added motivation for Los Angeles in 2028?
“To be honest, I don’t know. I think first we just need to get a little bit of distance to this because I think that there’s one very important piece that needs to come in place and that is, let’s say the spirit, the energy – the energy for that goal.
“Trying to convince yourself that this is the right goal is not the way to do it. You have to really get to the point that it’s the only dream to have. Like this is the only thing you want to do.
“So I think, okay, maybe giving this a little bit of time now, having a different focus with the IRONMAN Pro Series in 2025 will give us a little bit distance to that and then maybe in a year or two when we know a little bit more what’s going to happen. So we now go back to the basics and the process that we really are good at.
“Also with LA we will wait to get more information about the course before we start to get really hungry to do that again.
“But at the moment the hunger [for the Olympics] is not there. The passion is there for the training and for the guys to do the Ironman Pro Series. That’s something new and that’s what they said that they would like to focus on – at least for now.”
