This week please allow me to be a little self-indulgent. While I didn’t go to Runaway Bay this year for the Australian Super sprint championships, I have gleamed enough out of Oscar to be able to, I think, put together a good summary of Oscar as an athlete, person, and competitor, and how he fared over the four days of competition.
Coming off his Stress fracture, that pretty much kept him out of training from March to September we weren’t expecting a lot. Oscar has a busy life- work, school, footy, training and the Girlfriend, so time to train, compared to many others is quite limited. He probably only rode his bike 6 x and ran maybe 10 times in the entire lead up, but he did average 2 swims per week for 3-4 months which is new territory for him. He also lost many weeks, probably a month, to illness after a surf camp just before the Moana triathlon, which again didn’t help.
But here is the first part of Oscars DNA, he doesn’t make excuses. He just accepts his piece of pie and then aims to race as hard as he can. He had multiple things go wrong at Runaway Bay, but he just took them on the chin, saying “well done” to the other boys if they beat him. Deep down I know he didn’t like it and was frustrated, but he doesn’t let it affect him or display it publicly.
The second part of Oscar is that he loves the challenge of overcoming an obstacle. Before he headed off to Runaway Bay, he and Jasper did a session to work on dives, turns and racing a hard 400m. To start with every time he dove in, his goggles came off. And while I would offer some advice, he basically says “just let me work it out dad.” And then he does dive after dive until he feels he has it.
I once read that Kobe Bryant said parents should just let their kids work things out rather than offering advice The kid is already processing endless reams of information, they don’t need anymore advice, just the freedom to explore what works for them.
And finally, Oscar loves to race. Even when results didn’t go his way, he would come out and say, “the race was fun.” He loves the adrenalin and tactics and if it happens, winning! He was willing to race Moana even though he had barely run or ridden his bike in the lead up, he simply just wanted to have a crack.
So onto the racing. Jasper and Oscar had 6 races over 4 days to test their triathlon skills and abilities against the top 80 junior athletes in the country.
First was the aquathlon – a 400m pool swim into a 1500m track run. Oscar nailed his dive, but the first challenge he encountered was that he had tinted goggles and a night swim under lights meant he struggled to see the wall for his turns. In the end he had a sprint finish with Jasper, which was epic.
The next morning was the Le Mans- a 400m run into a 6km technical ride into a 400m run. While he raced well, he tried to push the limits of his dismount, but put his foot on the line and copped a 10sec penalty. 10seconds costed him 11 places which when trying to qualify for the 16 slots in the A and B finals is a lot. He also struggled with the turns as he, had to slow down significantly coming into every U-turn and couldn’t catch back on without a lot of effort. So, he went and spoke to TA coach Brendan Sexton who gave him some great advice.
The next race was a short triathlon as a part of the mixed team triathlon. But unfortunately, a severe lightning storm cancelled the nights racing so everyone had to deal with the disappointment of missing out.
The next morning was a short triathlon, followed 2 hrs later by a reverse order triathlon. Unfortunately, in race 1 he messed up his first transition by not getting his cap and goggles in his box as he ran off, having to go back two times costing him the first pack to ride with. Then on a tight U-turn he had a small crash that put him further behind. In the second race he loved the race but was beaten by a friend in a dash for the line which again annoyed him as he had a good lead going into the swim.
So, it was hardly a great first 5 races. This year he was in the C final over 300, 8 and 1500m and competed against the other two best SA athletes plus 15 others from around the country. True to form Oscar put together a great race. He nailed his dive, had a great swim, his T1 was solid, worked hard on the bike and employed tactics like slowing the field to take on drinks and nailed his cornering. Coming off the bike with a few athletes ahead of him, he had the quickest T2 and then worked into the run. He played the patience game letting the others fall away, and with 200m to go he made his move, pulling away to claim the win.
So, while the week of racing wasn’t ideal, it led up to a the final where he was able to show the type of athlete and competitor, he is by applying everything he had learnt. He stayed positive and focused and didn’t let his emotions get the better of him, he just raced as he planned and nailed it.
His no excuse mindset was highlighted after we dropped his friend off after flying in, when he said he needed to see a doctor because they thought he still had a piece of glass in his foot from an accident a few weeks ago. But they were wrong it wasn’t one piece of glass it was 3!