Vincent Luis : INVINCIBLE | The One To Beat - Triathlon Documentary | Episode 1

here comes a kick from vancon lewis showing once again why he is the best triathlete in the world there is no doubt he is the world champion for a reason my name is vincent luis i'm a french triathlete ranked number one in the world number one it's rebellic i'm second on the olympic ranking but i'm closing the gap and vincent louis is gonna make it a perfect three from three he is mentally mature and ready to be the best in the world how do you dislodge this guy everything he does these days he's got the midas touch he's the best in the world two years running he raised four times in 2020 and he won every single one and this frenchman has announced himself with a perfect weekend it's very very rare that you're getting opportunity in your career when all those three disciplines come together perfectly for an athlete vincent's in that sweet spot right now there is no room for arrows someone's down and it is matt how's that mean is the glass above things just me well huh it's not easy to find a weakness with vince no one has cracked the code yet seems like he's becoming kind of unbeatable [Applause] to be a triathlete it's a it's a relatively selfish endeavor because it it's it's almost an obsession because it requires so much physical preparation a typical triathlete today is waking up at 5 00 a.m in the morning completing a complete swim program with the olympic swimmers coming home eating trying to get as much recovery in getting out on the bike shopping three to four hours of intensive bike riding coming home recovering get some work done and then running in the afternoon so you're doing three disciplines a day usually you know 13 days out of every 14 day cycle it's hard to perfect one discipline but when you're trying to perfect three it takes a very very special individual to win all three olympics wts and then to to go and win super leg it's more than hard it's it's semi-impossible so i grew up in vessel uh it's a super small town it's in the east of france it's close from switzerland my sister she was basically the brain we did the same school every time i was showing up they were like oh yeah you're good but not as good as your sister i think the school system in france is not as good as it should be and i wasn't interested in anything that we were doing at school [Music] when i was little i was like really keen in going outside doing a lot of activities and basically when you're young all your friends are playing soccer so you want to play soccer too i wasn't the best and i think i really was not made for team sport i was always yelling at them or you know you know going hundred percent you're not giving your best i think they got a bit pissed at me so i ended up being a goalkeeper every year i remember we had this race this running race with the old school i could raise the oldest people so they were four five years older than me and i remember beating them and i was like who's this kid and yeah that was that was super funny because they were like ever you guys are playing soccer and you think you're good runners but over five or six k i'm destroying you know as long as i remember i was yeah really competitive i always wanted to like challenge the older guys i think even in training sometimes i pissed off a lot of guys because i was like every day super motivated for the training [Music] first triton i think i was 10 or 11 and i had like a really good bike like bike from the supermarket that my dad bought me like two or three weeks before we were racing like from 10 years old to 16 years old altogether i mean i was the best of the youngest but doesn't matter really because i finished fourth and uh the funny thing is actually this guy that that one is one of my best friends now foreign when i started triton when i was 14 or 15 i was the closest to be a pro swimmer i got this call from like a swimming national training center and say oh yeah you got good results you should come with us and then i showed for first game two weeks and it was basically you swim two hours in the morning you have two hours of gym midday and you stream two hours again in the evening and six days a week but after a week i was just like wow i'm not gonna do that on my life and my parents they called me i was like please can you come and pick me up basically that was it and they're like oh we just had a call from like a national training center for triathlon and if you want to try you can try and i went there and i and that was like two weeks like such fun and i was like wow this is what i want to do i want i want to have some fun but i want to work hard but still having fun and actually talking to people i don't want to put my head in the water for two hours in the morning two hours in the evening and being super selfish and all this stuff so i think that was the that was the switch doing these two camps seeing the difference between the streaming mindset and the triathlon mindset that's when i say okay let's go for triathlon so 2004 i was home in brazil i was rooting for the french guy fred belleaubrey obviously back then my real superstar was beavendohkety remember this race perfectly amish pulled away and won the race and even finishing second and then third i remember the podium when they had like this uh this thing on the head with the leaves and everything i was just like wow this is so cool like olympics are just like complete different level and this is what i want to do i want to race the olympics this is this is my thing [Music] [Music] for me i was only focused on the podium and the medals and i think that's really where i understood and i knew that i wanted to be like an olympic athlete [Music] taylor yeah i made two toasts already maybe we can do two more [Music] my name is taylor spivey and i'm a professional triathlete i'm ranked fourth in the itu and third in the super league ring [Music] is out of the water too taylor spotted he's going straight to the front and she's gonna run away with it taylor spivey i've had seen vince race several times before i had ever talked to him and i think he had also seen me race before too but i was a much newer athlete so i admired him because he came from a swimming background but i always thought he was you know so much more experienced especially six years ago seven years ago when i was just starting the sport i'd always looked up to him but i had never really met him until he started messaging me on social media i knew that our our team camp was going to overlap in flagstaff we were both racing the relay so he proposed a coffee date he said if he won that i would owe him a coffee and if we won i said he would owe me two coffees so um we beat him so he took me out for a date in flagstaff and we've been together ever since we used to come here with taylor for like a few camps joel my coach told me oh you can go wherever you want him and i told her i like girona it's nice good weather people are relaxed and they have good food good coffee so let's go there again and we do that again and we had good performances in super league she won the super elegant mayorka won all the super leagues like at the end of 2018. i was like we should not waste our money in airbnb's oriented orienting places just let's just visit some stuff it's crazy expensive it's a good place to live and and we need to invest now we realize that we really like this this place and that could be a good like base camp for us to to to go in between races and in between training camps overseas and here we ended up here slowly building our dream house and yeah living living the girona life i think the first time i realized i could i won't say making it my job but at least being good at it was nationals i finished third i was like yeah i think i think i can do better i can train more obviously i wasn't really running or cycling match so i think that was the first time i really like race the best in the country you get back the journalists are calling you from like the local newspaper like oh yeah you're the first medal for the team like at nationals so you're just like yeah maybe that's good what i'm doing but back then i was just enjoying like i was just like yeah come on i will go with my parents and i will eat chips for the world travel at the back of the car when i was 18 and i i told my dad yeah i think i want to turn pro and he was like protracted that's not a job so what you gonna do i was like no but i think i wanna i wanna give it a shot i wanna try but he was okay listen i got this money that i saved for your studies if you wanna spend it somewhere else spend it somewhere else but that's it there is no more take your chance and and do it all out so yeah i took this money i think i bought a car and uh and i started renting a place but that was good fun you know you just like living the life eating frozen pizzas and stuff like this and trying to train and perform and and you have no options you can't get back i mean i won't get back to my dad and say alison i waste everything and now i need to to leave here again and find a job without any diploma so that was not like an option for 1820 you got your own apartment you start earning your own money and everything and you're like oh yeah whatever if i'm not going at the training saturday morning or sunday morning it doesn't really matter you kind of get into like a circle when the less you do the less you want to do and you're like yeah i still have my paycheck at the end of the month i showed up at you 23 worlds i thought i was the king of the world i got destroyed i think i finished like 35th and i remember sitting in the hotel lobby already dressed up for party the federation of content sat next to me and he was like so what's up wha what did you do i was like oh i don't know a bad day i was like no ain't no bad day when you world champion it did not work enough and i start to be like defensive like what do you know about track and you know nothing it's like oh yeah you're right i don't know much but i know that when you were champion last year and you finished 30 this year you did something wrong for one year and i think that was kind of the day that i decided like wow nobody can tell me i'm not training enough [Applause] [Music] [Music] i think vincent louie's trump card is his ability to suffer more than his competitors he really thinks about all the details not only in training but also in his recovery he makes sure his nutrition is good he makes sure his time in bed is good he makes sure his material is always perfect before a training and i think that's a lot of little points that i can actually learn a lot from him and that i look up to him for as well [Music] [Applause] [Music] to be able to train with with the best of the world in every discipline that's incredible and especially in this time with the the corona and we have a small but maybe one of the strongest squads in the world still well it's training with the best guys in the world and it makes all the hard work a bit easier sharing the pain together 2010 i really like put myself together i found a new coach and and i start like scoring good points on new 23 2011 i did my first world series and straight away i performed well i finished 9 for 10 for my first one i remember running with these big names and i was like what's happening like what what the hell here i remember starting the run and i was with tim don and i was like why this guy watch him 2006 he's a machine uh i should just like stay behind him and just try to follow and then after 500 meters i was like it's too easy something's wrong it's too easy so i just like passed him but for 500 meters i was like no you should not do that you're going too fast this guy is so strong this race i beat the the third french guy the guy that was supposed to go to the olympics the year after and i was like okay maybe that was the beginner's luck and then i raced again and again and again i keep and i keep beating the guys and sometimes challenging the other guys like lauren vidal or david horse and i remember 2011 grand final in beijing we were like going for kind of a spring finish from 5th to 10th i finished 8th i think the performance director back then told me he's like if this race would have been the olympic you will be eight so have a good winter and i might give you a give you a shot for next year and i remember i came back home and i was like well we're gonna train like maniacs we need to train like maniacs i need to win races i need to go why in march i was injured i had a stress fracture that was my first injury i did not know what it was i could barely walk and i still like flew to spain and did a training camp run 100k a week and completely smashed myself i remember a specific session of six times one k on the on the track running 245 okay and i had a chair on the side and i had to sit between the reps because i couldn't run slow the slower i was running the the more it hurts but when i was going fast with the inertia you know the shock was softer so i was just doing like 1k 245 sitting for one minute 1k 245 sitting for one minute i was like yeah it's going to be fine tomorrow's going to be fine i came back home and i had an mri and they said your shin is like like broken glass it's it's destroyed so you need to use crutches for four weeks and do like four weeks of rehab so we were in april and olympics in august and i remember that was like a race against the clock after this the french federation they told me now we you're gonna run a 5k for us and if you're running faster than three minutes per k for 5k without basically any training we'll pick you for the for the olympics so i ran that 5k i remember after the duck like knocking on my shin to see if i had any pain and stuff like this but that was good so they picked me for the olympics finished 11th with laurent and david that was an amazing experience and that's where i learned all the things you have to do that you don't have to do on a normal race and yeah i think that was good that was good for the first experience here i think that vincent's sort of rise to fame has been so steady that it was never suddenly like this shock who's this guy where did he come from you know he was always there or thereabouts in that period between around about sort of 2009 up to 2015 where he really started making his mark was how he developed mentally as an athlete his intelligence grew around racing and i think that's really important because your body needs to grow and develop improve the fitness and the strength but so does your mind and i think we've seen that about him the way he talks now he's a really deep thinker and that has definitely helped him get the results back in 2013 i was going for grand final in london i think three days before the race i i just laid down on the table and at the video and i was like something's wrong i don't feel good i could see like my heart like going like super strong and i told the video don't tell anyone i wanna race i have a race on sunday it's fine i'll be fine and i think a few minutes later i had a call from the doctor and said physio called me said you did not feel really great and i can't blame him i mean that's his job man he won't let a guy race like this and i was the luckiest guy the race doctor was a really famous cardiologist and he was like okay you come to my hospital and i will have a battery of tests running on you and and we'll see what we can do so i got like an extra nerf in my heart it's called wolf parkinson white basically it got like a different electric signal if you disappear when you're training when your heart goes up it's fine but if it doesn't disappear it can make you hard going too fast and he told me i will allow you to to do this race tomorrow but i'll be at the finish line taking all your your stats and everything to make sure you're okay and then after the federation wish to spend your license and you'll have to do that surgery so i did this race i finished sixth in the world he was at the finish line are you okay okay i'm like yeah i'm good fine and then i flew back home and yeah got surgery in paris now every year i need to to do a check i did it last week and it's still all good so yeah really happy i can still race i think for an athlete to be diagnosed with any career threatening illness or injury must be utterly devastating particularly when you're looking at how young vince was at the time that he had this condition and it was right just at the beginning of him sort of moving into those senior ranks and people starting to look at him thinking this guy has potential to win a lot of races so all credit to him that he was able to deal with it and put it behind him it's there it's always there because he knows he has this condition but to be able to go on and have the career that he has says a lot about the athlete he is today i was training in russ where i was living back then and i remember in the morning getting a text lauren had a heart attack last night and he did not wake up he did not make it i was like but i don't think i realized you know it's it's hard because it was still young i saw him a few weeks before and all this stuff and i think it's really the day when i uh i took the train went down for the funerals and i think that's really the day i realized like it's done we won't see him again it was a tough period uh i lost a few other people my two grandmas and you know that was like kind of a blur repaired for me he's the guy i kind of like take as an example i would love to do what he wanted to do like what he started because i remember he was like don't let people tell you the next brownie you're not the next brony you you're vincent you're yourself and i think that's a that's strong words you know you because if you if you want to do someone else if you want to raise someone else you're already losing i think vince would have felt a huge void when lauren went he was that sounding bored it was wonderful to see in 2019 and lausanne in the grand final vince sealed the overall world's title and he was able to dedicate that to laurent i think that was very touching and i think actually whilst laurent isn't here he is helping vince because he's inspiring him to those victories i can't believe it i see tomorrow i'm not dead dreaming i thought about my good friend lauren that left us and i was just racing for my life at the end amazing [Music] now everyone's going daily for reason nobody makes the groceries anymore [Music] i think it's eight full [Music] time mean we train together all year long so we we go through the ups and the downs and i think every time i help these guys they're also helping me in another way so typical week hard hit reps i'm not as strong as the boys to help me and the next day we have hot swim and i'm trying to help them you know it's given taken when you're training with them you don't think about like i'm helping them too much you don't think about it if you think about it you you can live you're not part of the group but i think in the beginning he looked well a bit like a typical french guy like uh like oh always looks nice always dressed up perfectly and when i started to know him he's like actually the nicest guy that there is if like you have a flat tire he will be the one pumping up the tire and um he's he's just a great guy and an inspiration i think for all of us in the group so vincent lewis uh i mean first of all he's just such a big idol i have a very beautiful moment together with vincent in calaveri we were in the first pack working together with a few other athletes carlo vari is a race course where there's so many uphill so many downhills when i was changing gears in the front i lost the gears for one or two seconds vincent comes behind me pushes me so that i can get the speed to put up the shine on the gears again and to keep going and i mean that's that's such a beautiful moment when it comes to races it's more like yeah let's fight let's it's it's it's the day now we can we can give it all out but i think i still have i have respect for everyone on the start line but i would still be more kind to the people that i'm training with but if it comes to a spring finish i mean nobody's gonna wait for anyone bitcoin is not going well i always thought he was very cool personality i was definitely one of the guys that i that i really looked up to but i have to say he looks very flashy and very aggressive like a very very strong personality but when you get to know him he also has like a completely different side and he's actually one of the the nicest most friendly guys that i know and he does everything he can to help you and i think that side even makes him even a more beautiful athlete and person he's surrounded by some of the world's best athletes every day in his training so i think that gives him a certain humility and it makes him appreciate the success when he has it [Music] yeah but i do not want to eat on the bike oh there you go next time i'm having a full lunch here as well so what i think of vincent louis he's fast for sure he's a a guy i would like to smash when the 2021 season come he's had two good years now and i think he together with gustav were like the two winners of uh 2020 with him winning hamburg and gustav taking daitona so for sure he's a guy that we often speak about in our group to motivate like before the last k visitor let's go winston louis he's a classy guy i really thought me and him had a good connection there we were talking together we are like friends he would ask me for coffee but then i checked his instagram he doesn't even follow me at the end of the day he got to respect the guy he's a champ for a reason so yeah what a star okay see you all right tomorrow yeah see you amigos leading to rio olympics i was like i'm gonna go for this gold medal i had the perfect winter like until march i was like super strong i did a national cross country i finished second i was in the shape of my life and then i would say what the the starts to eat the fun and uh got injured a stretch fracture in my ankle and then i kept running then the second ankle and then i had to use a wheelchair so you know when you're training for the olympics it's not the best way to to to stay in shape i show up at the olympics i was like maybe you can do something but that was i don't know i was far away from winning that was just like i'm over this like it doesn't worth it like all this time i wasted and and everything it's just like i want to have some like free time down time by myself so i just stayed home for for a few months actually did not train all my friends were like oh you should come with us you should do that with us you should come for like a easy job or whatever i was just like no i want to be alone i want i just want to do nothing my body was destroyed like i was so from everywhere still had like my my ankles were still hurting and everything and i remember my coach back then he says oh um we're going to kenya for training camp do you want to join and i was like if one thing can can makes me like move or do something that that's this i took a flight flew to kenya and i think that's the best decision i've made i mean you've seen these guys they're running for their life they're struggling to like pay the bill they i've seen kids eating grass so it's it's crazy like you notice how lucky you are and and that you can't complain by finishing 7th at the olympics these people they don't even know what's in the other side of the border from kenya and you're flying the world you you have money on your bank account you have a roof on top of your head i should not be depressed about it i shouldn't find excuse for not training because i finished seventh it's just that these people they're just happy because they they do a good sessions together they gave me like a different vision of the life and of everything that what i had back then that was exactly the thing i needed it was a period a bad pivot for him and for me rio is not a problem of sport but just with his mind i know him a lot and we we talk every every day and for me now he is good because he has taylor teller is a is the most important thing in this moment for him he has a quiet life and and just focus on the to atlanta and taylor also and family if he doesn't have terror for me it will be a big problem i don't think people think he's cocky i think people just think he's confident and he's there every day to give his best and i think a lot of people have that respect for him he's been humbled many times and he uses that as fuel to be the best athlete he can be and and if someone beats him he's okay with that because they're better on the day i think post 2016 was a huge crossroads for vince it could have gone two ways this is not an easy sport you know you are not being thrown big checks every weekend like formula one drivers are or footballers it's tough and i think it's always interesting in athletes lives that moment that make or break moments and he certainly made it then by making the decision to carry on to perhaps you know change his training environment a little bit work out what he needed to do as an individual both mentally and physically to make him the athlete that he became after 2016. you know having followed vincent louie's career since he was a junior and uh and and hearing about the promise and really expecting a lot from him from the rio olympics and i know he went into their injured and i know there's a lot of talk around him in not performing up to what his standards where he wanted to perform going to rio and he sort of went off off the radar a bit and then we launched super league and he came into super league like a like a dynamo and our super league champion with a perfect weekend is binson louis he was perfect racing for him he's in the top two swimmers in the world of triathlon he's in the top two on the bike and he's unbeatable on the run in a kick finish and he's able to run with anyone so how do you beat an athlete like that over an olympic distance there's time to get away but in super league racing you can't i will make my opponents run for their money super league now apart from the olympics is the series that everyone wants to be doing oh my goodness i watch that race and i just think how do they do it it is so intense it is so fast you have to be so accurate and he executes super league racing unlike any other athlete that i have ever seen i think what vincent realised was super league gave him an opportunity to refine the craft to get his skills up which you don't get in wts racing to refine those skills and perfect transitions that we're going to pay dividends for incoming olympic games super league has basically moved the learning curve for a lot of athletes that are now ahead of the game by doing super league racing and now going into these olympics as favors for the olympic games [Music] i mean the olympics of course is a special race but it's also it's just a race man yeah you just have to do what you do best and half the people they already worry too much before they start like it's a big chance and man all in like i say not much to tell you i think you know experience you've been through the olympics you've seen it i think you're hungry also because you know what it's like to go in with big expectations yeah i have this bit of feeling now that going to the olympics you know four years i mean five years ago now was like what this race can be like a life changer yeah like well i need to win this race because my life's gonna be so much better but now that you know i got this this wins i'm just like alright i'm already happy with what i like that can be better but it's not gonna like it's gonna change my life but not like crazy so is it the same for you like when you go to for third win fourth win in how are you like yeah but nobody's gonna take away my my first two or three wins yeah it's it's a fine line you know because from for me now i mean honestly i have my kids and i look at my my son before the start line this was before the second one and i just realized like early in the morning like and he doesn't care he does not care he just wants to go play and if i have a day free for him that's then he's winning yeah um and and of course like the thing is i don't know i still always have this the feeling that i want to prove something mainly to myself but it's like even for smaller races i still get like pretty nervous i always think pressure creates diamonds man pressure pressure is a good thing yeah you just have to realize that it's it's a good thing the negative pressure and the kind of like uh what happens if i think this you lose because you realize man your life your life is okay but i'm no more thinking like yeah i've got a pressure but i've got a pressure to do well yeah exactly i don't have the pressure of paying the bills with this race you know it's a different thing it's a different feeling yeah yeah because when you start i mean you go to like your first words and stuff you're like oh yeah i remember i bought a coffee machine the week before and i didn't have the money i needed to win my first prize i think the most important thing is and only you can answer this for yourself is to know why you're doing it like why are you here but i think you have to answer this question already before you get there otherwise the process to get there is too long you know why and with the experience you have luck good luck everybody else [Music] one thing to be fast strength the maturity of an athlete trumps speed every day of the week where vincent's strength is his maturity his strength and his endurance he's really at the peak of his athletic life right now now we ain't gonna lose now look at what we came for i won a few races two world titles super leagues and now now i think i'm back to where i was when i was younger just going to racism i just cannot see anyone dislodging him unless he self-destructs you ain't nothing that we can't do can i win tokyo in world and super league i think i can will i i don't know i mean everything can happen i think he's taken a lot from those failings of olympic games and failings when he's been a favorite to deliver and that maturity as an athlete is sort of bubbled up into this perfect position it's sports so you just have to show up be ready and expect the best i'm gonna go all in for this race i'll make sure i do everything to make 2021 a video [Music] you

Channel: Super League Triathlon

Views: 303,855

Keywords: athlete documentary movies, olympic athlete documentary, endurance athlete documentary, pro athlete documentary, vincent luis triathlon, vincent luis training, vincent luis motivation, vincent luis documentary, vincent luis invincible, vincent luis interview, vincent luis super league, super league triathlon 2021, taylor spivey triathlon, triathlon documentary, triathlon documentary films, triathlon documentaire, triathlon motivation, jan frodeno, vincent luis

Id: tAMjyovd66w

Length: 36min 21sec (2181 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 09 2021