Simon Lessing IronmanTalk.com interview
October 4th, 2007 by Nikola Tosic
Simon Lessing did an interesting interview for IronmanTalk.com. Check it out here. It is interesting but a bit controversial in my opinion.
First, I respect Simon Lessing as a competitor very much. When I was at World Champs in Cancun in 1996 I took a photo of him running towards the finish like with a British flag. This is not why I respect him, but I always remember him like this. What I like is that he has always given his 1000%. He has been a super tough fighter in every aspect. Always pushing all the way.
I am very sorry that we did not get a chance to see him fight for Ironman title. As he says in the interview he has had a lot of back problems and I can not help but think that this is the result of his extreme efforts and fights during all the past decades. On one side it scares me because I too like a fight, but than I realize I am not even 1% of what Simon Lessing is. I do not mean physically, I mean mentally. He is an angry beast god from pagan times, an unstoppable machine, a mythological hero that has been humbled down by the injuries from past wars. Again, so sorry that he did not have his chance in Kona.
On the other hand he talks about his coaching and this is what I see as very controversial. He mentions that he does not like athletes that rely too much on coaches and measuring and believes there should be more heart. I could not agree more with this but only when it comes to Simon Lessing. In my club there are so many beginners, even athletes that have been training for years, who definitely must not rely on their guts every time they train. It does not mean they do not have the guts and the will to chase and fight, it just means it takes a lot of time to reach a level at which you do not neen to measure and you can just push hard every day.
The very thing that made Simon Lessing a great athlete I think it can make him a bad coach. Most good coaches I met are calm, calculated and quiet. The ones that talk about fighting and such don’t have much clue. There are exeptions of course. This is just a reminder for me and everyone else not to take professional athletes as coaches for granted. Very few can actually be good coaches.
