Interview with Simon Thompson: By Rebecca Wiasak

DOB: 10 December 1977

Favourite leg: Run

Favourite piece of kit/equipment: Trek Top Fuel 9.8

Favourite sporting cliché: Failing to prepare is preparing to fail.

Drink of choice at the post-ride coffee stop: Small double shot latte

One thing we don’t know about you: I love to cook and I love dinner parties.

 

Simon Thompson is proof that there is life after triathlon. Though it took him several years to realise that the dream was over. And then what? You are an elite athlete and have been chasing summer for the best part of two decades. It is a simple formula – swim, ride, run, repeat. You have been to the Commonwealth Games, an Olympics, and notched up a World Cup win. But you have never been to university. Or been employed. It is a daunting prospect, but Simon took it in his stride and has recently co-authored a book that shares some of his experiences as a professional athlete. We caught up at Stromlo Forest Park last weekend where he was competing at the Australian 24 Hour Mountain Bike Championships in the Swell Design mixed team of six. He talked me through the transition to the working-class and that book deal.

 

 

ST: Never. Just before I started racing professional races, I never expected to actually make a career out of the sport. But it was very natural. I first saw it when I was eight on TV and was just like ‘I want to do that’. And once I did, I was like ‘I’m just going to do every race I can’ after that. It was never really a major focus through high school. I still played football and basketball but it was just something I always did. Even though running was probably my strength at that stage, I wasn’t that keen on doing cross-country because it wasn’t cool. I was like ‘I do triathlon, I don’t do running’. So it was probably to the detriment of my performance. I just loved the sport and wanted to do it.

 

 

ST: I think the performance was probably a career highlight, other than the two crashes. I think as a campaign, the way I had nine months to prepare for that and got to that start-line in the absolute form of my life. That is the hardest thing to do. You get one day in a year and you’ve got nine months to prepare and be in the best form and ready to race that day. I managed to do that and other than the two crashes, my swim, ride and run were exceptional. They were where I wanted them to be, which was capable of performing at my highest ability. So that was a highlight. But the actual 10th probably wasn’t. I don’t look at that and go ‘Oh, that was a highlight’. Probably when I qualified at Coffs Harbour, that was probably the highlight, having some of my best friends and a lot of Canberra people there, and [coach] Benny [Gathercole] and everyone to witness that. I have never felt emotions like that, ever. That just cannot be beat. That feeling sustained me for years and years.

 

 

ST: Surprisingly no. I’m quite pragmatic about it. I always thought, it wasn’t my time, or there were other things that I needed to do. It would have been a complete shift in my career and my life if I hadn’t crashed. I just think maybe there were some lessons that I needed to learn because of that. As I said, my performance other than that was fantastic, but it never gave me nightmares and I never lay awake thinking about it, surprisingly. I kind of just took it in my stride. I think I’m just that kind of person, I think it was probably for the better. It allowed me to have the path that I’ve taken.

 

ST: That was an interesting period. That was a real learning experience because it was something that was new. At first it was really disheartening to realise that I was in that position. We were kind of squeezed into it a little bit, but we made it our own. I think Benny and myself were obviously doing this together and we came back with a plan of action that was what actually happened and to be a part of that, it actually became one of my highlights. It had never been done before and it was so well performed on the day and it was such a good feeling going out together as a united team. The confidence we felt going out there...I could feel the confidence of those guys because they trusted me implicitly to do the job that I had to do. It took the pressure off. There was no pressure on me to win a medal. There was no pressure on those guys. If they had a bad swim or a bad ride, they knew there was someone looking out for them, which they had never had before. So instinctively we just went out there confident that we could play our role. I guess the most disappointing thing was that it never happened again afterwards. It kind of set ourselves up to be able to do that, at that level, with the Australian Institute of Sport team and the Australian teams and it just never did.

 

ST: There are not the rewards. It was a situation where there could be rewards for doing that, whereas most often there is no glory in it and no money in it to do that. So until there is the money in triathlon that there is in cycling, there is just never going to be a reason to sacrifice your own race for someone else. I guess especially here in Australia because we don’t recognise it the same way that the Europeans do. They were doing that in France back when I started my career and first went over there as a 21-year-old. The very first race I did, that was my experience. Team guys waited out of the swim, they were sitting on the fence on the barrier waiting for their best runner to get out of the water. I rode off and 10 minutes later they came storming up behind us. They dragged him up to the front in one race.

ST: Exactly right. And that’s the way it was operating in France at the time. It never happened on an international level, the way we did it at the Commonwealth Games but it was certainly happening in Europe.

 

 

ST: No, certainly not. I think in hindsight, looking back that was probably the one thing that disappointed me. If I hadn’t had those crashes I probably would have looked to move onto Ironman stuff sooner. I think I was more predisposed to having good performances at the Ironman level much earlier on, but there was a feeling from myself and from people around me that I needed to back to the Olympics and get that medal that I didn’t get. So that turned into the worst part of my career because I think I was doing it for the wrong reasons. I was doing it for retribution or something like that, as opposed to doing it for the love of it. I think that caused me to really go away from what I needed to be doing. By the time I did actually put a focus on long-course stuff I was already starting to get itchy feet about other things to do. I was already starting to feel like there was only so much I could achieve in my life by staying in the sport. While the coaching thing was a great thing to do for me personally, and it was a great transition, I think having a focus on two things over those last couple of years probably meant that my performances weren’t as good as they could have been.

 

ST: It was a really tough time. It wasn’t a quick fix. Fortunately for me I was working with my life coach towards the end of my career and because I started to think that I wanted to get into that area myself I put a massive focus on personal development. It was that that brought me out of it. I moved to Lennox Head and started training with the young guys up there but it was completely removed from where I was before. Other than the training, I was focused on personal development and it was a very rare opportunity to do that, and I was doing it very hard with the aim of going onto coaching, which I had started doing as well. It was a very unique situation. I was going to meditation. I was meditating every day and I was going to meditation groups and it was that sort of spiritual aspect and the personal development, which really brought me to the point where I was able to make good choices and feel like I was back where I wanted to be.

 

ST: It is a tough question. It was never something which came suddenly for me. I think I was heading towards that a few times. I guess it’s a tough one because for me physically I could still be continuing now but it took a while to realise that mentally I was already not there anymore. For me I felt like there was more that I wanted to do and more that I could do. Even though it was a shelf life, once you stop that was always going to be it for me. There was no going back for me. I think when it eventually did become clear, it did just drop like a penny and I just knew the time was ready.

 

ST: I was just chatting to my girlfriend about that tonight because it is so amazing. I was yelling at the screen because it is just awesome. I was just so happy for him. There is always hope for getting back in good shape, but for me, we’re sitting here at a 24hr mountain bike race. I’ve always loved doing these things, I’ve always dabbled in the adventure side of things and now I think I’ve got more of an opportunity to do that whereas before it was probably a hindrance to my triathlon career and I was always careful about it. To me this is fun. I really enjoy it. Triathlon stuff wasn’t so fun in the last bit. When I was focused on the coaching, that is where my head was. I was out training and physically doing the hours but mentally I was somewhere else.

 

ST: Yeah, I think if I moved to long-course earlier and started focusing on that I could have set myself up better and could have had more sponsors and better results. I think I was always battling and never quite hit it and I was probably a bit too old, unless I was consistently there. I think partly it was because mentally I was already moving on and so subconsciously you’re maybe putting out those vibes to people as well. I don’t really have any regrets at all. When it came time for me to decide when I was going to retire, when I was struggling with it a lot, my life coach said to me ‘what do you have to do before you are ready to retire?’ And I was like ‘shit, I don’t know’. It was like ‘I haven’t finished yet, I’m not done, I can’t stop’. So I sat down and said ‘what do I have to do before I can retire’. I laid it out and had pretty much done 80% of that and then the last 20% I did in the next two months. So I was like ‘I can retire now’ but then I was like ‘I don’t really want to’. I thought cool you do it because you love it. That was probably 18 months before I officially retired. So there were no regrets because I really felt like I did everything I wanted to do. I got a world championship, I’ve got a national title, I’ve been to the Olympics, and I’ve been to the Commonwealth Games. Like you said, it has taken me to amazing places, I’ve met amazing people and it has been an incredible ride.

 

 

ST: I started – twice. I didn’t get very far.

 

 

ST: It was a little bit. I had always sort of felt like I had such a good network through my sponsorship and people I met that I would never struggle to get a job. People had always said to me ‘Thomo when you have had enough of triathlons, there is always a job waiting for you here’. So I was never really that concerned but it was just a case of finding something I was passionate about. I was going to go and start a business degree when I started with my coach and she said ‘what are you going to do that for’. I was like ‘business is a good thing to learn’. She was like ‘what are you going to do when you finish it?’ I was like ‘I don’t know’. She said ‘wouldn’t you like to do something which is really tangible and useful to you now’ and that’s when she suggested the coaching. It just made total sense. I just went with that flat-out because I was passionate about. I absolutely loved it and I still do. It was the perfect thing for me to go into. I have been very fortunate that I have been able to follow what I really enjoy and it doesn’t feel like work.

 

ST: No, I’m actually coaching less and less now that I have started with Trek. I am struggling to keep up with my clients and so I have only got a couple at the moment that I work with because it is just so busy with Trek. It is something that I will always try to continue a little bit because it is such a good way to learn. For me it is a way to experience things outside of my world. I think it is something that I will definitely do more heavily later on. More as a mentoring, coaching type thing.

 

ST: That started through Paul Blackburn who is the founder of Beyond Success who I did the life coaching with. So the opportunity came up to co-write a book with him and I just grabbed it because he is just so well known and well respected. It was going to be an interesting sort of book for me to do. I did that through 2009 and that’s probably why my results weren’t as good as they should have been. It was a fairly hectic workload to get it done in the time that we needed to do. I am pretty proud of it now. It took 12 months to come out, later than I expected. I am a published author now. So that’s cool.

ST: I think I need a few more experiences yet. I think there is enough of me in that first book anyway, at this stage.

 

ST: It has been fantastic. Short story. I wanted to start work because I wanted to learn more about the business world and get a lot more new experiences. This opportunity came up and I couldn’t be happier. It is amazing how well my skills I have learnt through triathlon as an athlete have really transferred well into my role with Trek so far, with project management and event management, and with the marketing and branding side. I feel like I have really found a good role for myself in a really good company with a good team. As a coach I wanted to work with small to medium businesses and I do that on a daily basis with the bike shops, from within a bigger company as well. It has been a massive learning experience. I have just been a sponge over the last couple of months because I haven’t really been in the industry. I don’t know the bike industry so that has been a pretty massive thing for me, a huge learning scale. But it’s great. I have been fortunate that there are some good people in the team who have really helped to facilitate my learning as well.

 

 

ST: And you don’t understand what goes in behind it. It is so much more involved than what I would have ever considered.

 

ST: Well now that I am the sponsorship manager, my inbox is getting hammered at the moment. It is interesting. I have made a lot of friends in the last couple of weeks.

ST: Yep. Fighting a losing battle – battling the bulge and losing at this stage. I just want to have fun with sport. I want to be fitter than I am so hopefully when things settle down I can do a bit more. It’s just finding that right balance.

 

 

ST: I’m just like everyone else. I try to do the best that I can do out there. It might not be as quick as I used to be but I have probably got better skills because I mountain bike more now. It’s just fun. I’m just glad to be a part of it. I like that no one knows who I am.

 

You can learn more about Simon at his website: