Why Training Consistency Matters More Than Short Term Race Results for Young Triathletes

One of the most common mistakes in junior triathlon and in sport generally is over-indexing on short term race results and mistaking them for the goal.  At Momentum Triathlon Academy in Melbourne, we spend a lot of time helping our young athletes understand what actually drives long-term performance. And it's certainly not the $300 carbon shoes.

The 99% vs the 1%

As we look ahead to each triathlon season and the goals you set, we always want to make sure that junior athletes and coaches keep the important thing as the important thing. What do we mean by that?

The temptation is to think that your result at a 2XU Triathlon Series race, GSV Triathlon carnival, regional cross country or state team qualification is the important thing. And yes, those moments matter and are absolutely worth celebrating. But they only happen because of the training and consistent work that you put in beforehand. Which makes your ability to train well and consistently the more important thing.  When we spoke to Performance Coach, Dan Atkins about this, he called it prioritising “availability to train”.  In other words, if you are not available through injury or fatigue, then you cant be consistent and you can’t improve.  

When we prioritise the fancy new pair of carbon shoes or spikes, we forget these are the 1%. Your ability to train well and consistently over time is the 99%. When the 1% makes you unable to do the 99%, we will prioritise the 99% every time.

Young athletes in our groups will have heard us talking about sleep, pacing, nutrition and recovery, because these are the things that allow you to train consistently over months and years. And it is that consistency, compounded over time, that gets results in the bigger picture.  This is also why we fund a Clinical Myotherapist and have created a new role on young athlete wellbeing.

Julie Derron: a great example

If you want a real world example of what the 99% looks like, look no further than Julie Derron, the Swiss triathlete who won silver at the Paris 2024 Olympics.  You might remember that she split pre-race favourites Cassandre Beaugrand and Beth Potter on the podium in a result that surprised a few onlookers.  

Julie was not a standout talent early in her career. She started racing in the youth and junior field in 2012, accumulating top ten finishes before stepping into the elite field in 2018. There was no overnight breakthrough. What followed was years of steady, consistent work with multiple World Cup wins, European Championship titles, and a quiet accumulation of strength, fitness and race craft.

In the year leading into Paris, Derron reflected: "I didn't miss a session. I was fit, focused, and ready." That was after navigating a serious hip injury in 2023 that kept her from running for months. Rather than panic, she used the time to work intensively on her swimming, knowing that the strong current in the River Seine in Paris was going to disproportionately favour strong swimmers.

She was not many people's tip for a medal in Paris. But six years of doing the 99%, session after session, got her to the Olympic podium.

What this looks like at Momentum

Consistency over time is one of our core coaching values and on the list of ‘performance behaviours’ that our young athletes created, here in Melbourne. We say it to our athletes when they're deciding how hard to push in a session after a big day at school. We say it when they're choosing between rest and training. And we say it when a race result isn’t what they wanted.

Whilst the morning swims at MSAC, the Tuesday evening runs at the Tan, the Thursday sessions at Albert Park don’t feel like much on their own, done week after week, month after month, they compound into something far bigger.

Our hope is that in a few years, some of the young athletes we coach won't be thinking about the same races they once did. They will have grown and will be exploring new parts of the triathlon world, whether that’s longer distances, national teams, racing overseas or whatever they choose to focus on.

Whatever their goals, if they focus on the 99% now, they might just get to explore some of that world.

If you'd like to train in an environment that prioritises the long game, we'd love to talk. Find out more about our junior coaching and adult coaching here.