Coach Faris Al-Sultan on the Ironman: "You can not just so durchballern"

SPIEGEL: Mr. Al-Sultan, you are the coach of Ironman World Champion Patrick Lange. But you can not be there this year at his Hawaii race on Saturday. What happened?

Al-Sultan : My visa for the US expired at the beginning of this year. Therefore, I now had to apply for an Esta permit, which occurred to me late, but basically within the period of 72 hours before departure. Unfortunately, the test by the US authorities is still out, but my flight to Hawaii would have already gone on Tuesday.

SPIEGEL: How are you doing?

Al-Sultan: That's a joke. My whole life as an adult you can read but Google. I am sorry for Patrick that he is now going to Hawaii without a coach. I save myself 48 hours of travel, two weeks jet lag and lots of CO2.

SPIEGEL : By the way, on Google you can also read a story from your time as a minor: As a 16-year-old, you made yourself two years older to start a marathon. Why did you really want to participate there?

Al-Sultan: I was looking for the challenge of how young people do it. In sports I found that, I was already in the swimming club, but there it quickly became clear that this is nothing. So it had to be something else - the marathon.

SPIEGEL: What time did you go?

Al-Sultan: 3:10 hours. Of course that made me very disappointed.

SPIEGEL: How please? That's a strong time for the first time.

Al-Sultan: I thought I had to be much faster. I had finally trained hard and renounced many things. I was not a fan of alcohol anyway and at parties I was always the last to come and the first to leave. The training just made me tired.

SPIEGEL: Sounds lonely. Did your parents worry?

Al-Sultan: I was not a freak and not isolated, I had friends. My parents did not care about the endurance sport. This is not supposed to sound like neglect, but as long as my grades were in school, I was allowed to do what I wanted.

Robert Michael / imago images

Why not cross triathlon? Al-Sultan in 2014

SPIEGEL: It quickly became extremely popular with you: Already as a 19-year-old you were at the start of the Ironman for the first time, the longest triathlon distance. Where did the fascination come from?

Al-Sultan: I saw the pictures of the Ironman in Hawaii and was enthusiastic about Thomas Hellriegel. This hardness to himself, he has embodied as well as no other triathlete. When cycling, he immediately wanted to drive everyone away. No tactics, no consideration for losses. Today one would say that was not the smartest tactic. But at the time she was very impressive to me. I wanted to be such a tough guy too.

SPIEGEL: How hard does an Ironman have to be?

Al-Sultan: The sport is very demanding. The athlete must therefore be able to withstand a demanding training routine. The Ironman is very much about the physique, but also an enormous will is very important. In the race itself, you have to be smart and be able to divide the forces. You can not just go through it that way.

SPIEGEL: You became a Hawaii champion in 2005 and have participated in the World Cup 13 times in your career. Do you feel these decades of high performance sports today?

Al-Sultan: I'm definitely much better than a tennis or handball player. Such athletes are very damaged after their career by the permanent shock loads. They do not exist in triathlon. But of course, if I take hold of my thigh muscles, it feels like there are little rice grains under my skin everywhere. That's funny. On the back I sometimes have my ache.

SPIEGEL: In 1999 you were in Hawaii for the first time, most recently you were also the coach of Patrick Lange on the island, who has become world champion twice. How has the event changed compared to that time?

Al-Sultan: In the past, there were many more birds of paradise. The whole event was much louder, wilder, more colorful. There were mustaches and Vokuhilas. And the clothes from that time! We are belly-free and in swimming trunks walked around, some wore purple, others neon yellow. At that time, the Ironman was still a real adventure, but you noticed even in my time that it is less.

SPIEGEL: Do you miss the old time?

Al-Sultan: Not necessarily. But I miss young athletes who absolutely want. They are also ready to destroy themselves completely, to calculate the mistakes, to override them and to go against every science. Today everyone has their coach, everyone looks at the power meter and looks at the heart rate. If everyone wants to keep their wattage on the bike clean, then the viewer will eventually switch off.

SPIEGEL: Patrick Lange is 33 years old, Sebastian Kienle 35 and Jan Frodeno are already 38. Many international athletes are already over 30. Where are the young triathletes at the Ironman?

Al-Sultan: If you look at the age pyramid of the participants, then this year will actually be a senior event. Young participants under 25 are missing almost completely. In my time it was different, I was at the age of 21 for the first time in Hawaii.

SPIEGEL: Why is that today?

Al-Sultan: That's because there are now many more triathlon races in the short or middle distance. Since the young people want to let off steam first; for these competitions they have to train less and they can do more of them in one season to gain competitive experience.

Arnd Hemmersbach / Getty Images

Please always extreme: Faris Al-Sultan at a competition in Abu Dhabi

SPIEGEL: Shortly before the Ironman last year, Sebastian Kienle accused your protégé Patrick Lange of driving in the slipstream, which is forbidden in Hawaii. Do you like it when the athletes also attack each other?

Al-Sultan: In this case, Sebastian Kienle was bullshit, even though Patrick was punished for blocking in 2016 (editor's note: groundless driving in the middle and the resulting obstruction of overtaking athletes is called blocking). But the statements have annoyed me. In Hawaii is now very hard attacked, if someone is in the slipstream. Of course you still have a positive effect if you keep the minimum distance and eleven meters behind someone drives, as Patrick does. But that's just not cheating anymore.

SPIEGEL: Patrick Lange responded to the allegations with the title defense, he also undercut the magic eight-hour limit of Hawaii in the race. What is possible for him this year?

Al-Sultan: Patrick has moved, he has married, had to take more sponsorship appointments. Then he was sick, the competitions did not go well. It has changed a lot in his environment, and also in his training - this year we mainly wanted to work on his basic speed, but the plan did not go down completely. If it does not work this year with the title, we know why.

SPIEGEL: The Ironman in Hawaii has not had a publicly known doping case in professional racing for years. That can not really be true.

Al-Sultan: I understand: Doping swimmers, dodging cyclists, doping runners - so why should not someone who does all three dope? But if you look at each sport individually, then it is all about the maximum oxygen absorption capacity. Everything about the biggest engine - who has it wins the race.

SPIEGEL: And the Ironman?

Al-Sultan: There running economy or fatigue play a much bigger role for me than doping, even though that should of course help. Some people can not sit on the bike or eat anything so aerodynamically. These are bad conditions, even if the athlete should be doped. The one who trained the most has very good chances of winning as well, which means that you can already make enormous leaps in performance.

SPIEGEL: The Ironman organizer WTC recently introduced a new sponsor: a painkiller manufacturer. Can not survive the competition without painkillers, or what is the message of this partnership?

Al-Sultan: That hurts every triathlete in the soul. I have never taken painkillers, either before or after the race. Everyone now knows how dangerous painkillers are. One must almost hope for the WTC that this pharmaceutical company has paid huge amounts of money for the partnership. What a huge PR disaster and bad signal for our sport.