Latest news from Olivier Godart :
After IM Barcelona i took 2 weeks off and after that i had a bit of a niggle in my right calf, unfortunately had to skip DIT which still pisses me off. I got back to action in Bahrain 70.3 last weekend. Wow, what a race, so windy and very very challenging conditions to say the least. I mean, i m a pretty solid guy and i got almost blown off the bike. The wind never really helped unfortunately. had a so so race, bad swim, got knocked in the head and honestly couldn’t really cope that well with the conditions, so i had to let the pack go. Solo race from there on out but a good bike and a good run gave a me top 20 finish. But as said, not really happy with how that went.
Also Bahrain 70.3 was my last race as a pro. The reason for leaving the pro circuit under the Ironman Brand is the fact, and i am really honest with myself here, i have absolutely no shot to qualify for Kona as a pro. That qualification is so tough, it makes the purgatory look like a walk in the park. If you really look at the reality, there are a couple of other factors that play into this as well: in order to be really good, i would have to focus all my time towards triathlon and not work anymore, but i don’t want to do that. secondly, i don’t have the swim to be in the front pack, and the way the race dynamic is nowadays in IM and 70.3 pro racing and its basically draft legal riding, is have no chance to get anything done, because the WTC only values participation and not performance in the pro and the AG field alike. Barely no supervision of rules or implementation of any kind. Everyone in the field is basically left to their own device. That cannot work. But i mean, hey, i am happy with the results i had as a pro: half a dozen wins, good times and met great people for the most part. super racing occasionally. To qualify for Kona as a pro you either have to be in the top 15 the year beforehand, or you have to be basically top 35 in the KPR and i am quite away from that.
I have 3 goals left in triathlon: i want do well in Kona, now again as an age grouper, i want to win an overall IM distance race and improve once more on my fastest IM time ( 8:17:00 ) to try to get closer to the ominous 8h mark. After i have done that, i will sail off into the sunset.
For me personally, i never really made a difference between pro ranks or AG anyway. I am a triathlete and i love the sport. Time to get a new chapter going to follow my remaining goals in the sport.
next race for me will be 70.3 Dubai, home race. gosh, can’t wait for it. see you out there.
