But spending time on technique around dead turns (for example) would not have been time particularly well spent when LCB was focused on IM (i.e. until two weeks ago). And she has said she has plenty of things to work on on the skills front.
But it demonstrates the importance of not specialising too early in a single “sport”, it’s hardly crazy but any time spent racing cyclocross, or crit racing - literally near identical sports to long distance triathlon, would have meant mounting and cornering would’ve been learnt, at a young age, then there would be nothing to really learn before the two events.
There’s a local youth triathlon club near us, I’ve no idea what it’s like, I see old men helpfully pushing teenage girls up hill on their bike which looks a bit dodgy, but the club shirts are never in youth cyclocross races, never in youth crit races.
And that’s not even really genuinely varieda activity it’s still just riding your bike.
For me the best coaches are those you have never heard of, 1000’s of them giving up time voluntarily and helping the development of the likes of Lucy when she was 9 or 10 years old in a swimming club. The only “elite” coach I’d truly put in the bracket of seeking out would be Minichiello. He has taken juniors through to World and Olympic medals, he knows his limitations and addresses them, the story of him using a local junior javelin coach to teach Jess the basic techniques because he didnt have the skills. That’s the sign of a world class individual. The only reason anyone knows of him is because the youngsters he coached chose to stick with him, not because the NGB supported him. In fact quite the opposite, he has had issues with the NGB throughout his career. He is not an elite coach because he’s an ex pro or made the right friends at Leeds Beckett as is the case with the vast majority of “world class” coaches. A close second to JC as a motivation behind coaching 
If you say so, but more enlightened coaches may see the benefits and value of bike handling skills and transition training…
but not impossible to pick up these skills later…
i should bl00dy think so too…
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Granted we didn’t see her actual transition, but I got the impression the damage was done on the run from swim exit to T1, Learmonth hammered that run. That would be more a tactical error than a technical one, unless she had redlined the swim so much she couldn’t run hard.
But the value is clearly different in the different formats of the sport and I would expect enlightened coaches to understand that too…
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This, and there’s a big push even in swimming, although on the ground clubs still only care about county times, or academy qualifications. We had a guy on a zoom with the cycling club, his son is 8, saying that his son loves BMX but he wants him to be a track cyclist so when should he focus on track to have the best chance. The coach just said there are world champions still not specialising. I added that he shouldn’t focus just on cycling either, she should swim, run, play football or rugby, play cricket, anything. WE also have parents telling us that their “Johnnie” is a sprinter not an endurance rider at 10 years old. They don’t even have a fully developed anaerobic energy system at that age , so no one knows what they are! Ethan Haytor didn’t race a bike until he was 14. By 16 he was British junior madison champ and after 4 years was on the performance programme at Manchester. This is very sport dependent though. A gymnast or diver starts young for a reason, swim technique needs ingraining from a young age, but it doesnt mean they should just do one sport.
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I’ve not suggested otherwise and yes, you can always works harder to overcome a skill deficit…
that’s a good point, and she was disadvantaged by positioning in T1…
LCB has an IM tattoo on her ankle 
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Just googled it & got this
Imagine it’s not LCB’s, but er wow
Ah, good
Sponsor?
I like that you have a pen and pad ready for taking notes!
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Now we’re finding out which members have huge collections of pictures and videos of LCB saved on their hard drives (probably showing my age, is it all cloud now?) 
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Instagram stories disappear after a short time, so you must have saved that picture 
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