Kat Matthews team made triathlon history in Dresden when their female athlete smashed the eight-hour barrier to complete an iron-distance triathlon in 7.34.19 at the Mana Group / Pho3nix Foundation Sub-8 Project. To give themselves the best possible chance of victory, the team called in the support of our elite bike mechanics in order to wring every last ounce of performance out of every bike – in training, and throughout the full race distance.
About the project
When the Kat Matthews team came together for the first time at the Sub-8 Project in Dresden, they knew they needed to have total confidence in one another if they were to succeed. We stepped in to assure the optimal performance and integrity of every bike ridden by the 10 athletes throughout the event: giving them the confidence they needed, to give their all, smash the 8 hour barrier and take the victory.
We provided full, personalised technical support to all of the athletes throughout the full bicycle event, from warm up, through the time trial itself and into the cool down. From the set-up of personalised turbo-trainers in the pit area, to mid-race support delivered from the team car on the track, our on-tap expertise created a multitude of marginal gains that contributed to the team’s ultimate win.
Responsibilities included:
Personalised set-up of time trial bikes and turbo trainers
Constant 2-way communication on race day, ensuring that all issues were anticipated and all problems, prevented
Applying cutting edge technological innovation to every bike, for incremental performance gains
Upholding race strategy throughout the full event
In-race support, delivered from the team car
I’m proud of the choice that we made in selecting Breakthrough Events to support us. We needed someone that could handle the stress of the buildup and the moment with the international world of triathlon watching. You knew our end goal before we started and at every decision you already had a list of solutions. Every bike got to the start line, optimized to levels that gave us performance gains over the competition and had no mechanical issues throughout the entire race that would have been detrimental to the final result.
