Beven Twiddles Knobs For 2000

Sydney Morning Herald

Friday April 18, 1997

LOUISE EVANS

St George Grand Prix winner Brad Beven has cast off his Luddite cloak and adopted 20th century training techniques for tomorrow's national triathlon championships which will be held over an Olympic distance course at Mooloolaba.

Beven went back to the future for the first time last month at the Adelaide Institute of Sport where incredulous scientists seized on him and marvelled at how he'd reached world championship standard unaided by a coach, training partners or sports medicine support most elite athletes take for granted.

The 28-year-old Queenslander became a multiple World Cup champion by training alone in Cairns in what he admits are primitive conditions.

But since his revolutionary trip to Adelaide where he was pricked and probed for a week, Beven has seen the light and now trains with the aid of a heart-rate monitor that had been collecting dust since he won it and shelved it two years ago.

"I have been anti-technology for quite a while," Beven said. "The AIS staff had a good old laugh at me. They were amazed at how I have been training and I have a lot to learn. It is a steep curve."

Beven said he was willing to forgo old-fashioned training patterns and adopt new techniques to set himself up for the 2000 Sydney Olympics. He admits, however, it may have left him a little underdone for tomorrow's big race which carries world championship qualification for the first three across the line.

Last week's Japan World Cup winner Chris McCormack was alarmed to hear that Beven had a new weapon in his already formidable arsenal. "Brad is the one to beat and he is fast enough already without any extra aids," McCormack said.

The elite women's race features a clash between defending national and world champion Jackie Gallagher and World Cup champion Emma Carney, with training mates Nicky Andronicus and Rina Hill strengthening the field.

"The hilly course and hot weather will be brutal; if you are not 100 per cent it will be hell," Gallagher said.

© 1997 Sydney Morning Herald

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