Life Without Limits, A

by Wellington, Chrissie

  At Aigle you change and take the chocolate-and-cream trolley train that hauls you up the 1,000-metre climb to Leysin. The carriage rattled as the ratchet pulled us higher, and I confronted my nervousness. At the end of the line I would finally meet Brett Sutton. I felt like Dorothy at the end of the Yellow Brick Road..

  Meeting Brett Sutton was a big deal for a triathlete. It turns out he has trained some of the best in the world, and he is one of the most colourful characters in the sport. He revels in his reputation as the ‘dinosaur’ of triathlon, the Tyrannosaurus Rex. Tim Weeks had told me all about him. Eccentric, a certain way with words, very blunt. ‘Don’t be offended by him,’ said Tim. ‘Don’t be offended by him.’

  Why did he keep saying that? Either Tim must have thought me a sensitive flower, or this guy must be ferocious. If I wanted to turn pro, if I wanted to walk away from my job, my friends, my life as I knew it, this was the creature I had to convince, and soon I would be at his lair.

  I had been ill the week before, and the week before that it had been Christmas and New Year. I wasn’t in the best shape for this. Those mince pies and beverages weighed heavily on my mind and on my waistline. Would I be able to do myself justice?

  And yet I had this chance to be accepted into Brett Sutton’s team. Tim had filled me in on this as well. Team TBB was a new professional triathlon squad, founded by Singapore-based Dutch entrepreneur Alex Bok, who owns a chain of bike stores in Asia. Brett Sutton had been installed as its head coach, and with him came some of the best triathletes in the world.

  When the train reached its destination I yanked open the door and tried as best I could to prance across the station platform like a thoroughbred. But lugging my 20kg bike across the snow was making it difficult. And anyway, when I looked around I couldn’t see a T Rex anywhere.

  There was an unremarkable-looking guy heading my way, though. If in my mind’s eye I had carried an image of the archetypal sports coach, this man was the antithesis of it. He couldn’t have been more than five-six – shorter than me, at any rate – and he wore a hideous pair of shapeless, blue tracksuit bottoms, held together at various points by elastic and tucked into a pair of Ugg boots. He had a paunch and thinning hair. He must have been getting on for fifty.

  I was already taken aback by the sight of him, but I was really thrown when he offered me his hand and in a broad Australian accent confirmed that he was, indeed, Brett Sutton. Really thrown, but also strangely encouraged. I could handle this guy, surely. He was friendly, and one thing that struck me immediately upon meeting him were his large, soft blue eyes, which seemed to radiate kindness. I immediately forgot about trying to look the thoroughbred. ‘Oh,’ I kept thinking to myself. ‘Oh. Right. So . . . this is Brett Sutton.’ He seemed warm and welcoming. Maybe he was just misunderstood.

  But there was another matter on my mind. Eight years earlier, back in Australia, he had pleaded guilty to charges of indecent relations in the late 1980s with one of the teenage swimmers he was coaching. This was a big concern for reasons of morality and safety. The crime had happened a long time ago, but I needed to give the issue serious thought. I would ask the advice of the other athletes; I would watch him carefully and challenge him on the subject, and I would make up my own mind.

  It was a Saturday night, and my first glimpse of Brett’s ‘method’ was when he dumped me outside the apartment of two of his athletes, Sam Renouf and Lizzy Hessing. There was no question of helping me to settle in or find any food. ‘It’s my day off tomorrow,’ he said by way of farewell, ‘so you won’t see me. Sam’s taking you to meet Andrew Johns and Stephen Bayliss at eight tomorrow morning. You’re going for a run. I’ll see you at the pool on Monday at seven.’

  Sam and Lizzy, who were a couple, welcomed me every bit as warmly as their supposed monster of a coach. So far, so normal. The next morning AJ and Stephen were just as friendly, and we went for a jog with the snow falling round us. And it was very much a jog. I was itching to go faster. I could tell AJ and Stephen were paying me attention, and through them I started to feel Brett’s eyes on me.

  Back at the apartment, we were supposed to ‘rest’ for the best part of an entire day. This, it turned out, was going to be the aspect of the week I found the hardest – and it would be the part of being a pro I found hardest. I couldn’t do it. It dawned on me that I never just sit down and do nothing. I’d never watched an episode of 24, but Sam and Lizzy watched them one after the other. That was all they seemed to do – train and watch 24. I sat down dutifully on the sofa with them, but I couldn’t last much more than one episode. I did my Sudoku puzzles, I went wandering in the village. I did anything other than rest. I had a lot to learn.

  The week began in earnest at seven the next morning. All of Brett’s athletes were at the pool. I was struck by how regimented everything was – everyone was punctual throughout the week and there was precious little socialising. But I was also surprised that, rather than one big training session, Brett was overseeing many of them simultaneously. Each athlete had his or her own programme, specifically tailored. One of Brett’s mantras is that no two athletes are the same.

  The first observation he made about my swimming was that I was too weak in the upper body and over-reliant on my legs. How could I hold my own in the carnage that is the open-water swim of a triathlon when my upper body was doing little more than steer me in the right direction? I spent the rest of the session swimming with paddles and a pull-buoy. By the end, the accuracy of his initial assessment was all too plain. I’d just had my first brush with Brett being right about something.

  It wouldn’t be the last. He also told me, there and then, that he knew I had had an eating disorder. The man is bold and unreconstructed, but, even if it took me a while to trust him unreservedly, he does know his stuff. And he knows he knows it. ‘I’m so right it’s scary,’ is one of his favourite sayings. Even on those occasions when he’s not right, it’s still scary, and you learn to accept it. He may not be all that much to look at, but he has a will of iron, which he requires you to submit to if you want to be coached by him.

  That makes it sound as if you have to be passive, or, better still, weak. No, you can’t afford to be either of those. My first instincts as a fiercely independent woman were to rebel against him, which I would find myself doing a few times in the months ahead. Then the penny dropped that a triathlete has enough on his or her plate just enduring the physical and mental hardships of training and competing in their discipline. To be able to maximise their performance Brett believed it was essential for his athletes to cede to him all responsibility for strategic decision-making – in other words, to do exactly what he said without question. He often used an officer/ private analogy. He freely admitted that his aim was to brainwash his athletes, because we didn’t know what was good for us and he did. All the same, if you’re used to being your own boss, it takes a lot of strength to place your trust in someone so unreservedly. In many ways, that was the scariest part of what I was about to undertake.

  It was on the Wednesday of that trial week in Switzerland that the idea of turning pro became a genuine prospect. Like the racehorse trainer he had once been, Brett had cast his eye over me in the pool, on the treadmill and on the bike. He tells me he had made his mind up about me that first morning at the pool, but it was after a bike session on that Wednesday that he sat me down to have a proper talk.

  Brett had sent me and a couple of the other girls off on a set of hill repeats, cycling up and down an inclined road. Each repeat took about seven minutes, and we were told to do it for an hour. Brett doesn’t always attend bike sessions, and you learn to dread the sight of his white Citroën Berlingo when it does pull up at the side of the road. In fact, it’s not long before you jump out of your skin whenever you see any Berlingo. There are too many of them in Switzerland!

  The sight of Brett that Wednesday, though, only encouraged me to go faster. I was the newcomer and I was so eager to impress. I didn’t know about the etiquette of bike
training. I didn’t realise that you weren’t supposed to go bombing off, and that cycling faster than the more experienced athletes in front of the coach just wasn’t cricket. I didn’t know, and, frankly, I didn’t give a damn. Still don’t, even now that I do know. So Brett turned up, and by the end of the hour I had lapped the girls on this training ride.

  This sort of thing didn’t endear me. None of the girls that week, other than Lizzy, was particularly welcoming, and, although it was too early for me to notice it, resentment was brewing.

  But Brett loved all that. He summoned me to his flat that afternoon.

  Lapping the girls on the bike that day was the first time I realised I could make a go of this, and Brett confirmed that this was how he was thinking. But he had some major reservations.

  He lived in a flat with his Swiss wife, Fiona, and their two small children. The flat was on the fourth floor of an apartment block, and I climbed the stairs apprehensively. I was actually really scared of him at this point. I was learning more and more about his standing in the triathlon world, how many world champions he had coached. There was a kind of awe that all of his athletes exuded when they talked about him.

  The flat was not big, but it was comfortable and open plan, and it overlooked the mountains at the back. There were kids’ toys everywhere, and he sat me down on their red sofa. So it was that the chat that would herald a new era in my life began.

  I say chat. With Brett, it’s more of a monologue, and you listen, although it’s no less exhausting for the fact that you hardly have to say anything.

  ‘Do you have a boyfriend?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you a lesbian?’

  That was one of our first exchanges, and it is the kind of blunt, confrontational method he delights in using. There was a purpose behind this superficially crass line of questioning. He needed to get to know me quickly if we were to work together, and there is no room for squeamishness in his world, or that of the successful triathlete.

  ‘I think you have the physical attributes to make it as a pro,’ he said, which was a revelation that had me buzzing with excitement. ‘But I’m going to have to chop your head off.’

  Oh.

  My problem was that I couldn’t relax. I went at everything like a bull in a china shop, he said.

  On one level, this was great. He told me stories of some of his other athletes, and the importance of their aggression and bullishness. He told me about Loretta Harrop, one of his world champions, and how the guys never liked training with her because she would smash them and dent their egos. He told me about another, Emma Carney, and how she was at loggerheads with her sister in training. One day they were going different ways round the track, and neither of them would move, so they ended up crashing into each other. ‘You’ve got to relish the fight,’ he said. ‘Sport is war.’ And I just bristled inside. I wanted to be like Loretta. I wanted to be like Emma. He told me to read The Art of War, the ancient Chinese treatise on warfare, and I bought a copy as soon as I got home.

  That aspect came naturally to me, but it was just as important to turn it off, which was my big problem. I had to be able to pour every ounce of my energy, both mentally and physically, into my training sessions and ultimately my races. At all other times I needed to be resting. And, most importantly of all as far as he was concerned, I must never let that gladiatorial instinct, accidentally or otherwise, turn itself on him. Pumped up to the eyeballs in competition I needed to be, but in my dealings with him I had to be as supine as a slave, never once questioning his orders. He wondered whether I’d ever be able to do this. This was where the removal of my head came into it. He also worried about my impatience. He had already picked up on my bull-in-a-china-shop tendencies, and I was impressed at how completely he seemed to have seen through me.

  Just to reinforce that impression, it was Brett who brought up the other worry at the back of my mind – his past. In 1987, when he was twenty-seven, he had sexual relations with one of the teenage girls on the swimming team he was coaching. The girl was under age at the time. He was ashamed of what he had done; he had abused his position. Nothing more came of it until ten years later, when he was arrested in the build-up to the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, for which he was coaching the Australian team. The girl, now married, had decided to press charges. In 1999 he was charged with what the Aussies call ‘indecent dealings’ with a minor. The court found that it had been consensual and that it had been a one-off – he had never again abused his position in such a way.

  Nothing with Brett is ever easy, and this already life-changing meeting with him that darkening afternoon took on an even more surreal tone as we delved into his past. But I was satisfied. Satisfied that it had been an aberration and that he regretted it more than he could say. Not once in the years since have I had any reason to think that similar ‘dealings’ have ever taken place with any of his athletes. Brett made a terrible mistake a long time ago, which continues to haunt him. It was weakness on his part, and we all know what it is to suffer from that. Case closed, as far as I was concerned.

  I left that meeting exhausted. I had spent hours on that red sofa, surrounded by toys and bric-a-brac, listening to Brett talk about the qualities required for this new world of pain that I knew then I was about to enter. It would be financially hard, he said – it always is in the first year, even for the most successful athletes, and for most it remains that way. I would have to move to Thailand, where the team were to set up camp over spring. I would have to give up everything for a lonely, arduous pursuit, whose requirements would come as a shock to someone used to a varied life. I was far from convinced that I had what it took, mentally.

  But I knew my course now. When Alex Bok invited me to join the team the next day, I said yes straight away. And when I took the train back from Aigle to Geneva for my flight to London, the sun was shining, the lake was icy blue and the mountains rose around me, thrilling and daunting at the same time.

  First things first. Leave job.

  I had taken a holiday for my week in Switzerland without telling anyone why, so now I spilled the beans and applied for yet another unpaid sabbatical. The request was referred to the powers that be, and it was granted after a suitable period of deliberation. This meant I didn’t have to resign, which kept the door open for a return if things did not work out.

  Then it was time to pack up my stuff and ship it all back to my parents’. Mum and Dad were incredibly supportive of my decision, although I think they were relieved that I was joining a team, not striking out on my own, and that I’d sought the opinion of an expert – I had done my due diligence.

  The other matter that required my attention was the due celebration of my thirtieth birthday. I didn’t know when I might next get the opportunity to push the boat out, so it was a good night. Naomi has a scar above her eyebrow to prove it. Thirty years old and only just about to embark on a career as a professional athlete – I knew it wasn’t the conventional path, but that milestone was just another reason why I had to take the plunge. If I didn’t do it now, I never would. And I would be left wondering ‘What if . . .’

  Mum and Dad took me to the airport, and on 20 February I flew out to join the team in Thailand. That makes it sound easier than it was. I flew to Singapore, then caught another flight to Phuket and managed to find my way to the place where the team were staying. The eighteen athletes were holed up in two Big Brother-style houses. I finally found the one I was meant to be living in at about 11 p.m.

  It was dead to the outside world. I stood nervously at the door and knocked. Nothing happened. I hammered a bit louder. Eventually, one of the guys (I don’t think I’d got him out of bed) answered the door. Everyone was asleep, he said. I could sleep on the sofa if I wanted. He had no idea I was coming. None of them did. It was another thing typical of Brett; a complete contempt for logistics. It wouldn’t surprise me if he had deliberately not told anyone of my arrival that night, to see how I coped, but actually I think he just forgets. I
t’s not important to him.

  I settled down on the sofa for my first night as a pro athlete. I remember there were boxes of cornflakes everywhere. ‘Is this all they eat?’ I thought ‘Bloody cornflakes?’ This wasn’t what I’d had in mind for my new life among the elite.

  I hardly slept that night. The next morning the team met for our 7 a.m. swim session at the pool. Belinda Granger and Hillary Biscay were talking about the six-hour run Brett had made them go on the day before. Six hours? They’d run 60km. What’s more, they actually seemed to have relished it. ‘It was a smash-fest,’ said Hillary. I wondered what I’d got myself into.

  Stories I’d heard about Brett began to play through my mind again. Brett smashes his athletes, they said. They’re like eggs to him. He throws them against the wall, and most of them can crack for all he cares because the ones that don’t will become world champions. I’d heard he got the new girls to act as slaves for the older ones to toughen them up. He had weigh-ins. He got the guys to run in wetsuits with rocks on their backs.

  We headed to the pool. I was apprehensive. Brett was waiting for us, and we all got into the water. Someone had brought their water bottle to the pool and left it on the deck. Brett went ballistic. He picked the bottle up and hurled it over a fence. ‘You don’t stop and drink during a triathlon swim, so you don’t fucking do it here!’ he yelled. ‘The next time I see a bottle at the pool it’ll be the owner who gets hurled over the fence!’ This was more like T Rex.

  And then I couldn’t understand why my room-mate was being so hostile. I was let into my room for the first time later that morning. She had told Brett that she didn’t mind sharing with me, but that he had to tell her when I was arriving. Obviously, he hadn’t, and they’d had a massive row at the pool. She was furious with him, and she was taking it out on me.