Sub7 / Sub8 challengers will get 10 pacers plus Brownlee, Charles-Barclay, Blummenfelt and Spirig on their motivations for the attempt.
More tantalising details of the Pho3nix Foundation’s Sub7 / Sub8 project have begun to emerge with criteria and limitations for pace partners being revealed ahead of the spring 2022 attempt.
Alistair Brownlee, Lucy Charles-Barclay, Kristian Blummenfelt and Nicola Spirig will each have a team of 10 supporting athletes for them. It’s assumed that these pacers will be the same gender as the athletes they’re working for – but this is yet to be confirmed.
The pacers can do more than one discipline in the attempt and don’t need to complete a whole leg. They’ll also be able to swap in and swap out whenever they want. This gives the athletes plenty of flexibility to pursue their record attempts in whatever they believe will best guarantee success.
For example, as the sport’s best swimmer Lucy Charles-Barclay will likely need pure swimmers even faster than her to provide a draft during the 3.8km swim – however she will need to balance this against having enough firepower on the bike to create a draft pack that maximises speed and minimises effort.
Athlete Motivations
All the athletes have also chimed in on why they’ve signed up for the attempt or why they’ll be victorious.
Kristian Blummenfelt said: “The reason I will be the first man to break seven hours is because I have a better team around me. When it comes to testing, being in a lab and understanding how the body is working, we will be able to lift the sport to another level in the long distance.”
Lucy Charles-Barclay said: “I’ve signed up for Sub8 because I really want to test where my limits are and just how fast I can go. I truly believe I can go under eight hours so I love the chance to actually go out there and see what I can do.”
Alistair Brownlee said: “I will be the first one break seven hours because I’ll combine the best possible physical preparation and mental preparation with the best possible tactical, technical and scientific preparation to bring it all together on the day for the perfect performance.”
Nicola Spirig said: “I signed up for Sub8 because I was always lucky with my life; I had a lot of people supporting me and I learned a lot through sports. Now with Sub8 I have the opportunity to help kids, to give back, help them do sports, be active and inspire the next generation with a great project.”
