DEFY THE IMPOSSIBLE - THE SUB7SUB8 DOCUMENTARY.

[Music] you've got the pressure of the team you know you don't want to let them guys down i thought it was going to be easier than what it was to be honest this is a huge challenge for me and if i can inspire other people that means a lot to me if i fail i fail it was just cool to be asked i'm gonna go out way harder than i've ever gone out before i'm gonna try to be better even better than i ever thought possible [Music] james heinz wins the gold in 9.9 seconds elliot kid show runs into the history books [Music] the iron distance the ultimate test of human physical endurance from 15 brave souls in 1978 to now more than 70 000 each year a 3.8 kilometer swim 180 kilometer bike and a marathon back to back but there are two marks which remain beyond the scope of what a human can physically do the armor distance is easy and i can do it better it's going to be very hard i think only one person is going to do it the aim is to be the best person to do it we have invested a lot of time in training in science i love to prove people wrong and show that impossible is possible we are hoping that i can inspire a lot of people to take on their own challenges breaking seven hours or eight hours is going to require an athlete for this world class discipline planning flexibility under pressure the question they're going to be asking yourself am i prepared to dig this deep do i really need to suffer this much people said going sub 7 is impossible i disagree this entire challenge came from a from an innate curiosity i think of any athlete that's ever competed over have a long course triathlon it's just how fast an individual can go over the three disciplines 3.8 kilometers of swimming 180 kilometers a bike riding in a marathon just what is humanly possible if we relax all those rules and apply the rules that are globally accepted across those three disciplines in the rest of the world what is an individual capable of doing and as a former professional and world champion over this distance it's a question i wanted answered and i'm hoping we find out that answer with this challenge good morning will yes i am down here right on the edge of lake sefdenberg the athletes already here warming up the nerves the excitement you can start to feel it really building down here at the moment as we take on a historic day well i'm relatively new to the sport and to be up against nicolas spiriku again as a contender for the sort of the goat title in the female field if not across female and male it's an honor so the race start watching her do her thing you know going through the same process clearly just as nervous and the slight stress that comes with it this is a huge challenge for me and i'm still getting excited about winning and breaking records and and the challenge at the moment i feel quite excited because my whole team arrived you had the first sessions together and it's it's quite amazing to to have this team concept this is not just a normal triathlon we've taken two of the best male triathletes in the world two of the best female triathletes in the world and we've engineered an event to enable them to go as fast as they possibly can and when i say engineered an event we've allowed them to bring in the best of breed across cycling swimming and running to help assist them in this journey they still have to deliver the performance on their own but there will be a team dynamic that helps power them to the finish line done one minute and we'll let you go to your practice just once no let's get it let's get it kat matthews is the new powerhouse of women's triathlon she's the vice champion of the world she's come out of the army a great training base a hard work ethic and if any athlete can achieve the impossible kat matthews is one of them cat you must be riding such a massive wave of momentum at the moment are you feeling confident and happy ahead of this race yes i know i'm nervous i think this enormity the gravity of actually being here this week it's really come together and i'm starting to really realize there's so many different parts to this it's not just an easy an easy iron man it's just so much more complex so yeah i'm nervous but i'm also excited short and sweet but we wish you all the best good luck cat thanks so much [Music] probably the greatest female triathlete of all time she's at the other end of her career and she's also a phoenix foundation ambassador nicola you've said that this is going to be your last big event today we're all sad that it's going to be the last time we see you but are you ready for one last massive effort today it's a beautiful day if i can inspire other people if i can get kids to do sports that's that means a lot to me yeah you've done so much with your foundation and your legacy is this what this is about for you really stamping your legacy i think it's more about inspiring people and yes in raising awareness that kids should be doing sports uh having a healthy lifestyle and i hope i'm achieving that belief i really think you are huge good luck for today we wish you all the best thank you very much okay lovely thank you thank you so much here for the kids i'm here for the kids amazing human yeah absolutely incredible human there's uh so many kids around the world we need to help and one of the best ways to help them is by activating them and sport is is the way to do it tossing the coin i won the coin toss um which was pretty happy about but i'm not sure if that really meant anything to be honest here are the two of them just a a moment ago there's plenty of mutual respect between nicolas spirig and kat matthews and a little uh good luck best of luck i'll crush you later that type of thing we won't see that between bloom and phil and skipper there's no doubt about that i think dig in and see the latest news of joe if he has been giving any oh god i think feel free i don't know his motivation he certainly has made it more interesting than if alistair was here this is your quote yeah welcome to the first day of the phoenix facebook lives we are here live at lausa train and we have an empty chair because that was ballista brownlee's chair he's not here but the man's here the man himself christian bloomberg felt yeah the original plan of the race was christian bloomfield versus alistair brownlee the the winners of the last three olympic games going head-to-head over this great event and then eight days out we get the call alistair brown is injured he's out [Music] so enter joe skipper a very very different character than alistair brownlee our team's going to beat christian's team because we want it more than them second is not an option we don't want to go 6 40 and come second we want to win i think uh christian's breaking in his boots been around the hotel all day and he's nowhere to be seen my weight was actually training with him the other day i think he thinks now that we've kind of gone undercover and uh been stealing his secrets yeah i think he's uh upstairs sulking in his room somewhere he actually listens to a podcast that we do so we've been helping him out with lots of tips we want it more than them and we're going to make it happen like we really do honestly like that is not even an understatement we want to destroy them come on in buddy coming in seven minutes late stop four four i'll be early mate on sunday yeah that's good all right so we have joe skipper the brash up start but he's up against the gold standard the new standard of global triathlon in in christian bloomfield do you i was thinking what question am i going to ask you and it just boils down to do you feel unbeatable right now it's so good like maybe yes a little bit yes in long distance [Music] [Applause] the horns signaling here we go we have started the goal is to defy the impossible the new definition of what's possible has begun so we started on the left and swim and nicola on the right we were a head to start which i was like sweet already winning the race like this is this is a gift and then they suddenly caught back up and then just pulled away so easily i was like oh dear and already we see some different tactics yeah each swimmer coming up with what they think is the best technique to get the most drag the athletes are swimming 3.8 kilometers as fast as they are at the olympic games in fact some of the pacers the athletes have chosen are world champions and olympic medalists my experience with open water actually is quite limited and so i have this sort of nervous um confidence issue maybe halfway through that i'm like oh goodness it's a long way that breeze is picking up slightly and it's just giving that little bit of chop on the water you can see now that chop is just moving into them the fact that cat is holding with nick's team at the moment is a little bit unexpected cat's team look a little bit more efficient that single file line tempo looking really smooth where the others for mine looking a little bit ragged out on the left-hand side but maybe it's nicola that's saying like no quicker than this uh yeah i was uh having a weekend at the holiday house with my family skiing and the plan was to ride home from day and i was about three hours maybe into the ride when i had a crash i can't remember much i got up with a broken collar bone broken ribs holding my lung the first thing that i thought was i can still walk and i can still think so everything important is okay so life wise that was the first thought then afterwards of course talk to the doctors what needs to be done what's the damage exactly and the call to my coach brett to discuss what does that mean for our preparation and he thought it's very very difficult to get a proper preparation for sub eight but it wouldn't be us not to try you're fit and ready because you have had some up and down build up how are you feeling fitness-wise yeah don't forget your rival sitting right there so give us the political answer i'm great preparation hasn't been ideal i think we did pretty well to sit here now healthy and pretty fit and i'm i'm getting excited about sunday so that's always a good sign very good yeah well the end is in sight and they have been picking up the pace because at one point cat was 10 seconds down she pulled that back and now she's gone in front their formation has looked a lot smoother throughout now you can see it perfectly illustrated on the screen we sj was actually picking up the pace i didn't really realize i thought i was just feeling better but yeah we were just so it felt like we were just so smooth and in sync and on each other's feet and i didn't obviously notice how nicolas team was swimming but they looked quite um separated in that last kilometer or so the expectation initially from a lot of people was that nicola would be out of the water first but it looks very much now unless there's a huge acceleration that cat is going to actually exit first yeah i was hoping to get for a little bit but um i think it made the race really exciting [Music] so the men's start will begin one hour after the women's so if the men achieve the sub seven and the women achieve sub eight ideally we can all enter that finish shoot around about the same time could you say 45 minutes to the start of this summer really exciting thank you very both the guys looking incredibly relaxed to be honest this morning much more so noticeably so than the women were earlier today christian himself just looks like he's on for a day out if you need to go say left and i'm on the left side yeah just just you go that way and if you're hitting me yeah i'll get the hint that like all right okay he's trying to go left so like that's fine i'll try and do that yeah alistair yeah he was great he got behind it helped me out in the swim when he came out here i mean he only arrived late friday night so i had one practice swim with him um which i could have ideally done with a few more so joe skipper has made some big claims coming into this event but that was when he was standing behind alistair brownlee as one of his paces but now you know the buck stops with him all the pressure's on his shoulders and those claims have to be answered with results that he has to deliver personally and that's a very very different position you came in and said 647 what why are you confident that that's a possibility um well i wouldn't say i was like totally confident that's a possibility like i don't know really you kind of caught me unaware you were like asking me what i would hope to swim and i just thought well around 49.50 and then you asked about the bike and i kind of said what i thought for that and then the same for the run and then it just added up to that and i thought that seems a bit quick but you know i guess i'll roll with it it was already a bit of a win coming out first so yeah straight up the beach wetsuit down no dramas at all mark had set up my transition area he um he knows exactly how i you know get on the bike so he knows that it's a bit different to some people like i i put my left foot on first so the left pedal has to be further forward like he knows that already i didn't have to tell him that it was perfect i was like this is amazing maybe you should do this more often mark and i met doing triathlon we were on a training camp with the army he has zero interest himself in being a professional athlete and so it's only ever about helping me be the best version that i can be in the sport now right should we start getting into the wagons um many of us this is the lake many of us yeah so swimmers teams [Applause] but i think having someone that you live with who really understands training fatigue is invaluable so if i'm saying i just can't be bothered or i'm a bit tired today he's like probably should go out the door you know give it a go and then there's the same day when i'm saying i'm really tired he's like yeah actually you look i don't think it's a good idea. yeah mutually supportive but mainly him supporting me christian bloomfield sets off to attempt to be the first man to break seven hours for the full distance and to do that he's going to have to get over the top of joe skipper with joe skipper you've got aleister brown he is a a true doyon a true leader of a team he'll be really giving joe a lot of lot of push and and interestingly they've opted to swim off the hip of aleister browning yeah so joe on the hip and christian on the feet on the feet two different tactics straight away from the onset and it seems that christian's team has has gapped them he's trying to stay within two to three minutes of christian bloomfield over this swim joe skipper straight up already losing a little bit of time it's by norwegian is it the hype train that has joe skipper cause the life train the hype train man the norwegian hype train is a term that was coined by joe skipper coming into this event and it sort of refers to the way the norwegians are attacking global triathlon now and doing things differently and getting the results that they are getting at the moment i keep thinking of him and their team as ivan drago you know from like rocky 4. i'm not the one who started the norwegian hive there was actually joe so the irony is that we're now sitting here and he will be my rival on the day so i remember when we first interviewed you you said the people that are doing the iron distance are no good and you can do it better 7 21 first time trying darma distance i think i've been able to prove them that i was right so [Music] what are you doing up there what's that what's the most bizarre thing olaf has come up with to uh to ask you to do or try well we haven't done it yet but he wants to collect my poo too to measure how much of the calories is left after i've eaten them i think you really crossed the threshold there you too hey irony is now that the people who may be laughing a little bit about us a year and a half ago is now trying to copy or do a little bit of what we are doing okay look at this crackly power exactly don't let those cyclists beat us this is quite important now because this is where we gotta think about getting the wetsuit off as fast as possible you don't want to be panicking you need to stay calm yeah out of the water in under 54. so they definitely made up some time towards the end both swimmers under 55 minutes they come out of the water together and they pick up their pacemaking team here is the team spirit she's on the specialized road bike has never ridden a tt bike in all the 20 years that she's been riding robbie well she said she was adamant she was going to ride on the road bike she's not a fan of riding on the the time trial bike i was riding a road bike i knew that would cause a lot of discussions let's say say it like that my reasons were that i was pretty sure i could get closer to the wheel of my my pacemaker and so have more draft than when i would be on a time trial bike and that i would be able to run off the bike better after sitting on a road bike in a very comfortable position and to be honest already in the days before the race when our team met and started to train together i was amazed by what they could ride as we've moved closer to this event there's been more and more focus on time that can be made up on the bike so oh we're going to have three swim pace makers no no no no no we're going to go with an extra bike pacemaker we've got more time to make up we can go faster the way cat matthews has decided to use her pacemakers is six specialist time trials on the bike there are two triathletes who will sit and share the work right in front of cat they will give me a head start on the on the time i predicted on the bike seeing that we didn't lose any time while riding to the track behind cat's team really gave me a lot of confidence and coming into the ring matthews is forced to surge a little bit that's what they don't want to have happen i hadn't expected nikola's team to ride that well so getting onto the track with just the 10 seconds i was a bit gutted if i'm honest my heart rate was really high for that first 15k to the track and i honestly mark said he said they're gaining on you i was like how i was like how like physically like shaking i was like my heart rate's so high so yeah that wasn't straight to plan [Music] we can hear the helicopter over here [Applause] and here is christian just taking his first steps out of the waters touching the beach and yeah starting running oh my legs my quads all the blood is in the arms ripping off the wetsuit on with the helmet and uh yeah onto the bike he's got the full kid on ready to rock and roll [Music] that's the first moment when i saw the car like with the timing clock and i saw like 48 minutes or something for you know for nine minutes that's a slow swim and so i was a little bit like wasn't sure where joe would be like he's like is he just like a minute behind perfect thank you so much skipper is just out on the bike now skipper just started his bike and the the gap was five minutes so it could actually be quite hard for joe's team to catch him joe got the water a bit further down than we expected we were a bit like oh man this is gonna be this is gonna be tough super nice riding good work oh the swim was uh absolutely horrific to be honest like i couldn't wait to get out of the water it just went on forever and i knew i was losing a lot of time all the riders very much saw this is also a battle of the bike legs we knew this was where the biggest time would come and the biggest change from a normal triathlon would be so from our perspective it was let's go as fast as possible and joe just gave us that freedom to go for it so we just sent it through corners and just hoped that joe would follow and he did he just must have just taken his brain out and gone this isn't how i normally corner but let's do it drill it we are on let's go from the start of the bike to the track we literally didn't touch the brakes it was like just leaning and i was just following them and thought if they can get around it than i can joe skipper down into the bars and settle into that rhythm as quickly as possible but the big question is the million trillion bazillion dollar question is can they hold this pace through the rest of the ride [Music] well the entire event at its core is about inspiring kids to continue to set goals continue to pursue the things that your dreams you know just because you're an alistair brownlee and nicholas spirig who have performed the one olympic gold medals they still have challenges still have goals and it's not what you've done that defined you it's where you're going it's more important but if you have the right drive if you have to the right people around you then anything is possible and and those people around you maybe in that case it's us as the foundation we running all different projects for the foundation starting from young children doing education program and phoenix skits around the world challenges like this show kids that even if you fail or even if you're at the top you still pick yourself up that was the ethos of why we came up with this event our plan is to reach million kids around the world so this is the plan in the future so with the swim being completed the athletes now have 180 kilometers of cycling and and the reason we picked this venue the reason we are here in germany is the laositz ring provided the best climatic conditions in june the best road surfaces to go fast and a controlled environment that enabled the athletes to to set and forget around their pacing strategies it's there's no quicker place on earth to go after this attempt than right here at the last ring and now all teams are on the loudses ring and this is where the speeds kick up [Music] triathlon is a very data-heavy sport um you know everybody knows how fast they can swim how fast they can bike what the power is how fast they can run now in this attempt it's you know taken to the next level basically essentially what i'm doing is collecting all the timing information from the timing mats as the athletes go around the circuit you know the athletes have got very precise schedules that they're aiming for in order to hit the sub 7 and sub 8 and if they miss you know if they miss a target and swim with a bike for example we have to flex that target for the next discipline so as we got onto the ring um the girls who had just done that big stint the three of them they did one full lap and then the next team of three who were going to sit in front of ruth and i then were ready after the first lap and then we settled into this routine i think on this bike leg certainly in the second half a lot of the coaches have started doing the same thing they're doing time checks on either side of this circuit nicola and her team doing a very good job to keep cat and her crew very much in their sights um this is going to get very interesting very fast robbie cat is around about three three and a half minutes ahead of nicola at the moment but nicholas sort of steadied the ship a little bit now and you can see the difference obviously when they uh when the pacemakers are going on the front when they're on the back when they're on the front they're holding about 300 watts i mean just under 280 300 watts but when they're back in the pack they're about 180 so you can really see the difference between what the effort is in the front of the pack and what's on the but again this should be quite exciting because nikolai is likely a better runner and cat might finish about five minutes ahead but nicole could take that over again so it's all gonna come down to the run [Music] we kind of got on the circuit we were doing 56k an hour and i was watching i'd got the uh i've got the garmin up and i was looking at the screen seeing 56k an hour and i was like i should get on the mic here and be like lads you're going too hot but we were four minutes down so it was like well i think that through the week our little motto was we're going to win this bite leg where the joke comes with the saw knot so every time i got like water from the car i tried to ask for feedback what's the gap three fifty three two ten oh look what's the gap hey 50 50 seconds all right they're getting closer and closer at the moment team rebel well tight carrying joe skipper behind them are about to overtake christian blumenfeld the world champion keep coming that we hate [Music] the last one is skipper huh earlier in the day on the way to the swim start i said to the guys look if we catch him bark at him like a dog you know just wind him up this is the moment we have been waiting for that's brilliant see you later see you later that's what i heard see you later how about that joe over there like barking and i hope that he would be on the limit but he was still having enough energy to give the ho ho embark as he was looking and looking at everyone like do you see me bark do you see me bark that is the junkyard dog park is it is it not is that just calling crime it is okay the ones who brought the last spark the loudest i knew that if he caught me on the run later on he was definitely going to do the same to me but you know it was quite funny at the time and i thought maybe it might unsettle them you know like we know how good christian is on the run like we knew part of this was they needed to crack as much as we needed to have a good day so it's like well actually if anything's going to crack then it's just going past them fast guys hey that's yeah i'm doing hey hey oh crap what i'm getting my leg get the chopper away from sake the helicopter get him out oh that was a big one yeah that's a that's clipped the wheel so wow see see you soon what is happening did you see christian's reaction yeah he's like thank you [Music] ally look ahead right when this transition which we know is going to be very critical describe again to the average human what it's like to have been on a bike this long to then have to completely switch what you're asking your body to do well at this point normally you're hoping like hell that you're going to feel okay but but you never quite know i think um this ride is going to have taken more out of people than they expected so it's going to be a less fresh run and a [Music] our studio is just right there in that building on the other side of that transition zone robbie and we could hear the cheers i could feel the cheers i mean it's just giving me goosebumps for my entire body i'm out onto the run now marathon to go and straight back into the hydration that's going to be a real key in this too i mean these temperatures are starting to really creep up around 26 27 degrees now oh my god put your hand together [Applause] there is we see nicola now into transition three and a half minutes down so let's make up maybe a few seconds here with a bit of a quicker change socks and shoes on as compared to to cat but i think she'd be pretty happy with her ride i mean they're both averaged around 46 and better per hour for 180 kilometers that's also caught up quite a bit of time there in the last few laps 20 20 odd seconds i mean that's quite a turn we started pretty fast so starting out that fast was a big risk [Music] joe's bike split has been absolutely phenomenal so far he has taken that five minutes out of him already he just completed the pass this is live from joe and you can see his heart rate uh so he's hovering around it's going up a little bit now actually it's creeping up so mid-150s now so he's obviously maybe starting to feel it a bit jan frodeno in 2021 went three hours 55 minutes over 180 kilometer cycle distance the fastest ever we're we're asking the athletes to go 40 minutes quicker than that so we thought we could do around 320 on the bike we'd done quite a lot of good training beforehand where we'd been practicing at certain like speeds i mean this is the team clearly that you put together um just critique their performance so far i'll happily say when the uh figure of 55 kilometers an hour got um banded around i was a bit you guys sure yeah that sounds really fast to me but they're doing it you know i was wrong i thought that the 320 was uh a bluff we kind of had an idea that we could ride 320 but no one really knew what the last hour would be like we knew we were good for an hour and a half to two hours certainly but it was just that two and a half to three hours 20 period where we knew people were going to start falling off the pace and that was going to be crucial oh man i'm hurting we've got for the for the guys still got 60 kilometers to go so they've got to hold it together for that last 60 because this pace they've been setting is just insane it's so quick we needed to make this time up we needed to make this time up and you know we we're just waiting for it at the end of the day did we know whether lads would be able to hold on for last hour or not no now it's just mind in neutral legs in fifth it should be quite exciting because christian is likely to be a better runner than joe uh and at the end of this at the end of the bike split we reckon he might have about five minutes advantage on him so christian's gonna have to run that down five minutes could be about what we might expect the difference to be so it should be a really exciting run actually all right into transition for joe skipper's crew [Applause] the pacers move out of the way they deliver the world champion the world record holder and the olympic champion christian's not getting panicked to the right there barnaba kip koich kip koetsch can run a sub 210 marathon that's he's a handy runner [Music] and off we go [Applause] [Music] and already spirig is taking time out of katrina matthews who went out fast but there is plenty to go in this one and if we know one thing it's that nicholas berry can run and she absolutely shines at this distance i think nikola is one of the greatest athletes not only in switzerland in the world i've ever seen i'm very impressed of what nicola managed to achieve throughout her whole career i remember um watching the sprint finish in london that's probably my biggest memory of nicolette yeah unbelievable i and three children and clearly she's got the balance right as well it really shows that you can do everything and i think that's empowering for all women when you know it's your last big effort there's something that rises up in you that you don't normally have nicola is one of a kind i don't think there's another athlete like her she's definitely going to be remembered as one of the greats the legacy that nicola is leaving behind as she retires is incredible i'm so excited to be able to just play a teeny part and support her in this endeavor the data we're getting in at the moment has nicola on a pace of running 337 per kilometer as compared to cat who is currently clocked at running 350 ones now you did say there was a real difference in the look between the two athletes i felt good in the beginning and my pacemakers were really excited and we were talking with oh that's too fast i can't run a marathon in that pace and we have to slow down but we were we were always going back to that rhythm and it was like well it's a good rhythm for the moment so oh well just let's stick to it and just just see if we can catch cat at the moment nicholas spirick moving around five seconds per kilometer faster than kat matthews which means that at this current pace she will catch cat and win by around two and a half minutes obviously that's a long way to go with this one 38 kilometers remaining so the marathon is where everything happens in the long course triathlon you know up until now everything can seem to be in control but if it ever falls apart it falls apart here we've all heard of the wall that 30 kilometer wall but these athletes are going to enter a realm that no one's ever been in long course triathlon they're going to be entering a marathon and a halfway point of a marathon after only five hours that's you know how they're going to feel at that point nobody knows that's going to be the interesting thing that defines this race just how well they'll handle all the speed or the bravado of of bike talk it all either comes to fruition or comes undone in this marathon [Music] [Applause] joe came off the bike around about two minutes 20 up on christian and he's holding around about 340 kilometers a hell of a time hell of a pace to be running the marathon out he's predicted marathon time is 2 35 but christian has just come out he started about the same place as joe but he's steadily go faster and faster faster each kilometer he's going in he's now running it under 330 kilometers [Music] [Applause] um i wasn't really told that christian was gaining on me but i could see it because of the course you can see right over the other side so i could see the split and i could see it was coming down a little bit you can see in the background christian bloomfield's got his eye and he can spot job the road blumenfeld taking 10 seconds out quick smart so he has seen skipper up the road and just like having on the bike in reverse he's thought i'll put the foot down here it still could be pretty close if joe if joe sees him coming and starts to pick up the piece again i've seen from some of his races in the past he has a tendency to go out hard but he can slow down quite a bit in the last half of an ironman marathon [Applause] [Music] to be honest as soon as i'd gone through the first one or two k's i knew that nicola was was closing and there was sort of nothing i could do about it [Music] i couldn't go any faster nicholas obviously showing us here why she is possibly the greatest one-day racer that we've seen and the female side of the sport cat and her team they are the hunted definitely i could feel her coming up mark was like yeah 50 meters closing in and i was like mark stop telling me how close they are it's stressing me out so much it was so hard but joe skipper looking very relaxed right screen as well oh someone's down there's lonnie bruno on the bike he's running oh dear he's not a cyclist that's true it's not going to affect the race but the big bands down when lonnie hit the deck ball the body said okay let's go keep going don't look back he's back he's back ruto there he is he's in there he's in the wrong gear but he's coming slowly now he's run off into the grass now he's okay he's not having a super time on that bike [Music] slow down well i actually more had to hold my pacemakers back they were like getting really excited she's just there she's just saying and they they started to get quicker and i always had to say keep it slow wait because of course i could also feel it would be close like my body holding up for the whole marathon so i didn't want to push it before before reaching cat and then um yeah exploding she doesn't want to pass too fast you don't want too many surges you want to keep yourself as steady as possible for as long as possible acting out in a logical rational way isn't it as easy as it is when we're saying oh right here talking about it exciting viewing well here it is it is official the legend herself is now out in front with about 14 and a quarter kilometers still to go this becomes nicholas spirig's race to lose [Applause] just slowly bridging up catching time catching time a bit 10-15 seconds per lap yeah counting down to yeah the move that i've been waiting for since he barked at me on the bike he's turning the screws on joe skipper he will almost be able to feel the hot breath on his back as christian bloomfield is approaching willie bark back oh i think you know what he's capable of doing something like that he looked at me and smiled when he did it and i said to him i said i knew you were going to do that i'm pretty sure christian just gave it right back to joe skipper as he went past that and i told him i'm gonna do it again on the next step so and then i said to his coach when he came past me i said if he blows i'm gonna [Music] no one's ever entered a run having ridden that fast so if there's a pass to be made usually it's going to be for good [Music] she's faster and moved away straight away cat hasn't even had the energy to respond there which i think probably tells us a lot demoralizing right i mean it just it takes it sucks your will into the pavement yeah she has been the better athlete and you sort of accept defeat you know fair play i think i sort of said to her like well done impressive running thinking that that was her done and mark was behind he was sort of saying remember that you're strong in the second half in my head i was like yeah i am but maybe not today i think for anyone to be honest the last 10 kilometers are going to be tough and on that last lap we are seeing that both girls slowed a little but nicola slowed by more than cat did cat has a really good marathon pedigree now she's run a lot of marathons very tired she knows how to get herself to the finish line when she is not feeling her best anymore whereas nicola she's only run one in an ironman so this is relatively unchartered territory for neglect there is a world where she does blow up people always do it because you just never know i think i heard cats say go go go a lot can happen in the last 10k here currently based on the predictions this could come down to a sprint finish we weren't expecting we wanted we hoped this would happen but we didn't think it was going to come down to a real head-to-head and if i was one of these two girls now i would absolutely be thinking about how to play it smart how to win this race no i didn't feel good at all yeah but look at this guys the re-pass has happened i started to get cramps took the salt i took the chairs i just knew the last 10k would be pretty hard and that was when i started asking mark like what's the gap what's the gap and he was like 20 meters 50 meters 100 meters and by the time we got down to the bottom corner she's gone she blew up we had nicolas spirick's team running in here looking for coca-cola to feed nicola her body is craving those refined sugars they go in and they go off like a firecracker just a few kilometers ago nicola was leading cat put 10 seconds into it then another 20 and now she's out to 46 seconds you have christian blumenfeld back out in front coming around right now give him a chance uh maybe it was 25k or so and i still looked over to take the time and i knew that's just like a minute or so i thought it would be like two and a half three minutes now because often it just the elastic band just snaps from past experience if you keep pressure on people in an iron man and you keep there in like striking distance they can't relax and they're likely to make mistakes my heart rate had risen another five beats or so and i was like oh you know this is risky we still got you know 10k to go i always try to keep my mind open in those moments because you never know how your athlete feels so she might look strong but she might also have her struggles and and her moments so um you never give up before the finish line there will only be one winner this is it final straight under a kilometer now to go do not go anywhere you are about to see the first sub 8 time from any woman in history [Music] i am a racer so of course i want to win there's so many things that can happen and as long as i was in contention then i was in with a chance joe was still there and was like a minute back and i didn't feel safe when you've run that long and that hard it's just it's the longest k i'm thinking i'm quite tired now i myself found it really exciting that the race was so close i was absolutely spent when i got there you know if you've given it your all then you can't ask for any more can you i could see all the pacers standing there and sharing on they've gone to the finish line this is gonna happen somebody said enjoy every moment cat matthews will send a message to everyone in long distance and to the world that it is possible to defy the impossible one of the most inspirational people in the sport the undisputed goat of women's triathlon comes across in the second fastest time ever [Music] the first one was the world record the second one was the world title christian blumenfield he has done it the norwegian hype is real [Applause] joe skipper the lionheart the junkyard dog he's gonna come across in an absolutely blistering time what a moment in the sport of triathlon no longer an individual sport they crossed the line together it was a genuine team performance which was just it's great when i saw them coming down i was i got really emotional you can still hear it now it was such a different experience oh yeah what a day and then crossing the finish line meeting sebastian who has been the man behind it like that is possible to do this race yeah yeah i mean the phoenix foundation's an absolutely amazing foundation and hopefully there's some kids out there that have been watching it that have been inspired and it just shows that you can achieve a lot if you if you really go for it [Music] [Music] yes i'm sure about that he's gonna be the last iron man i do so yes [Music] extremely proud [Music] [Music] for you to finish in that environment to to have teammates all around and help you to that final finish line yeah i i got really emotional when they came down to finish i i had tears in my eyes because we really did [Music] yeah the feedback i've had since the race has been incredible like loads of people saying well done it was an awesome experience and i knew our team was strong and i did genuinely believe that we had a good chance of winning that's been one of the highlights of the week was the teamwork great work our job is to you know assist and inspire children to be to be active to develop the life skills that that sport brings you always need a team even if you do individual sports and actually this event expressed the beliefs that we have in our company the impossible it was a very important project for all of us yeah hopefully we can inspire the next generation teammate dinner when you come past i said if you blow up i'm gonna have you i told him i knew that i had a bark left with me i saw him for the first time i saw that he brought a guy from the garden with him i think what the what's he doing here like spraying water or something around him the weed killer thing that my friend was using was actually al's idea like they i they just told me that about two or three days beforehand it was an absolute game changer ready [Music] that was a good one one of my better ones actually what did you think of joe talking on that track just before i don't mind he is an entertainer yeah he's an entertainer he just rolls straight off yeah michael you've got a secret wire what's the fastest marathon you've ever run two manchester two nine twelve yeah it's cool [Laughter] okay you ready happy here speech you okay okay so records [Music] when i was exhausted [Music] you

Channel: Pho3nix

Views: 105,222

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Id: iVY4noBCdos

Length: 54min 0sec (3240 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 17 2022