Mark Sutcliffe, The Ottawa Citizen
Published: Sunday, November 25, 2007

Simon Whitfield seems like a mild-mannered guy. During an interview while visiting Ottawa this week, he answered questions enthusiastically and candidly. He smiled a lot. His face brightened when he talked about his four-month-old daughter. He was funny and self-deprecating.

But you didn’t see Simon Whitfield while he was training.

“I’m an emotional trainer,” says Whitfield, the gold medallist in the 2000 Olympic triathlon.

And he doesn’t just mean he’s intense and likes to train hard. “No, I’ve had my shoving matches at the track,” says Whitfield. “And Colin Jenkins and I tried to drown each other one time.”

According to Whitfield, he and Jenkins, also an elite Canadian triathlete, bumped into each other a few times during a training exercise in the pool.

“We were each 150 pounds soaking wet, so it was a pathetic fight,” says Whitfield. “And we were laughing about it five minutes later.”

Whitfield says he also once threw a pull buoy at another fellow athlete and realized his mistake right away.

“Someone said, ‘You can’t do that.’ And I said, ‘I know.’”

Whitfield says he doesn’t know what gets into him sometimes, but that competitive fire is probably what sustained him through a two-year transformation in which he hired a new coach and rededicated himself to improving his performance, especially at swimming.

“If I was a hockey team, that would have been a rebuilding phase,” says Whitfield, a native of Kingston who now lives in Victoria.

Like other experienced triathletes moving into their 30s, Whitfield briefly considered working without a coach. But he decided he needed someone who was more demanding of him than he would be of himself.

“There’s a common theme among guys as they get older,” says Whitfield. “The classic line is, ‘I know what I’m doing.’ You get older and your ego says to you, ‘I’ve got this covered. I’m a self-directed athlete.’

“Some guys like that are too smart for their own good. They shed that accountability and they answer only to themselves. But you’re never as demanding on yourself.”

The result has been one of the best years of his career. So far in 2007, Whitfield has won three World Cup events, is second overall in the standings, and has qualified for his third trip to the Olympics next year in China.

Whitfield says his coach, Joel Filiol, provides the perfect balance because he’s unemotional. And he’s helped Whitfield improve his times in what has always been his weakest sport: swimming.

“It used to be that if you weren’t a good swimmer, you could make it up in the bike or the run,” says Whitfield. But now, the athletes who are first out of the water are strong enough to maintain their lead, he says. “So I’ve invested the last two years in getting better at swimming so I could put myself back into the front of the race.”

Under a new program announced last week, Canadian athletes will now be given cash for every medal they win at the Olympics, up to $20,000 for a gold. Whitfield isn’t against the idea, but is not sure how effective it will be.

“I’m really torn about it,” he says. “I think it’s a great step, but I also don’t think it’s an incentive. If I’m a young athlete, I’m not going to put my life on hold and skip university because I think I’ll get $20,000.”

While he has no complaints about his own situation or the support of Triathlon Canada, which he says should be the model for other sports governing bodies, he points out that most Olympic athletes are still struggling to make ends meet.

“It’s a billion-dollar industry,” says Whitfield. “And there are still guys who make nothing.”

Regardless of what happens in Beijing, Whitfield will be remembered for the dramatic fashion in which he won the gold medal in Sydney. He was one of several riders who crashed during the bike portion of the race, but he recovered and caught up to the lead pack, before pulling away during the run.

“When I chased the lead group down, I realized I had just pulled something off that I didn’t think I could do,” says Whitfield. That gave him the confidence that winning the race was possible. “The crash actually ended up being a positive thing.”

It was a historic and surprising win. But reaching the pinnacle of his sport at age 25, says Whitfield, was a mixed blessing. “Winning the Olympic gold was definitely a double-edged sword,” he says. “It was like, what now? I had to find ways to remotivate myself.”

Eight years later, after winning another gold at the Commonwealth Games in 2002 but finishing 11th in the 2004 Olympics, Whitfield says he has no trouble finding motivation.

“Now, my motto is: I’m going to get my damn medal back.”

© The Ottawa Citizen 2007