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teamTBB Welcomes Jo Spindler!

February 13, 2012 - Filed under: teamTBB

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I’m very happy to be back as an athlete into teamTBB. I’m with the team since 2009. I had my best years as an athlete with the Doc. Besides the sport, I was interested in the TBB business model with distribution, bike stores all over the world and a professional triathlon team acting as marketing machine. Finally when I got the chance I agreed to help building up a bike boutique in Germany. This is what I did last year. And this work and responsibility was so time and energy consuming, that it was impossible to carry on as a professional athlete. Nevertheless, I was keen to build-up a business in the sport I love so much.

But soon I realized, that not the sport, but DOING THE SPORT, was the center of my life, the glue that held everything together. A non-negotiable entity which structured my day and that I built my life around. I was interested in bike shop because I wanted to ride the fastest bike. I was interested in teamTBB because I wanted to be the best athlete. I was interested in the Doc’s coaching because I wanted to know the world’s best training. Since I simply stopped training and racing this center was taken out of my life and everything started to sound wrong. Besides that, I simply felt too fit to stop training and racing at all and forever. Deep inside I knew that I did not reach my athletic potential yet. Despite almost no training I was fit, it was never easier to keep a lean body and in my head there was still this ultimate, unbeatable desire in my brain to be the best. Dolphins swim, horses run, it’s their natural expression of being alive. And a triathlet’s natural expression of life is to train. In our sport almost every athlete would earn much more money if he works in a normal job. But if you have a talent, you cannot argue for pros and cons - you just feel the desire to act it out.

There is one other thing I want to mention: Besides my role as an athlete, I’m also a Brett Sutton educated teamTBB coach. During my time with the team I had the unique opportunity to work closely together with Brett – both as an athlete and as a coach. This change of perspective from athlete to coach and back to athlete was - and is - highly instructive for me and opened my mind a lot. Every single of Brett’s camps is different. Every year he changes his training a little. It’s an evolving process. But while I have done all the sessions as an athlete, and while I know all the sessions as a coach, I still have to learn a lot about real coaching. The sessions only make 50% of an athlete’s success. The other 50% is mindset, dedication, consistency: Creating the ultimate desire to succeed. Building the environment which allows the athlete to be the best he can be. This is the area where the Doc has unique intuition and unmatched abilities to form a personality. In working together closely with Brett he gives me the opportunity to reach my ultimate long term goal: To become a coach who is able to produce world champions.

And there is one last thing I’d like to mention. The beauty about teamTBB is the passion about the triathlon sport it is driven by. Passion is the engine and the heart of this whole venture, it is what the team is keeping alive since 6 years despite all difficulties and setbacks. And it is exactly what made it by far the most successful team in triathlon. The effort that Brett and Alex have put and are putting into their athletes is simply amazing. If there is a role model about keeping going on, it’s them. This is why I want to say them a big THANK YOU for their efforts in helping athletes living their dream.

Yours in sports,
Jo

1 response for this Entry

Luke Parsons says:

February 25, 2012

Jo, Go for it. I say always work hard and listen to your heart. I turned fighty a couple of months ago and I got a brand new R5. Why so I can race and go very fast.