Brett Sutton

Brett Sutton (born 16 May 1959) is an Australian triathlon coach and a former professional boxer, boxing coach, greyhound trainer, racehorse trainer and swimming coach, who is the head coach of Trisutto.com.

Before setting up Trisutto.com, he was head coach of the triathlon team teamTBB.

He has coached many World and Olympic champions, including Ironman world record holder Chrissie Wellington and Olympic champions Nicola Spirig and Emma Snowsill.

He is known for his forthright views on training methods and strong criticism of the International Triathlon Union (ITU) and its officials.

Greg Bennett, whom Sutton coached in the late 1990s and who become an Olympian and double World Cup winner, said, "He has learned how to read animals that are fatigued", a skill which, Bennett says, enables Sutton to push athletes to the limit, but not over it.

Sutton regards interval training as a very important part of his programmes, saying, "If it's not long, it's got to be hard."

He is infamous for his "black days", such as "Black Wednesday"s, when he requires a seemingly endless succession of hard intervals, or of other very hard sessions.

The value of these sessions lies, in Chrissie Wellington's view, in psychological toughening.

Sutton believes that blood lactate testing can be valuable, but only if applied sensibly, for example Loretta Harrop did not run fast enough to get a proper base reading, but she could swim fast enough for lactate testing to be useful in the pool; for other athletes the reverse may be the case.

He argues that Tudor Bompa's theory of periodization is not valid for aerobic sports such as triathlon, calling it "bullshit".

Sutton has a reputation for being hard on his athletes, and was described as being "infamous for his tough training sessions."

Sutton says that his training depends on the individual athlete, and that he spends most of his time slowing his athletes down, giving as examples Chrissie Wellington and James Cunnama, who trains less under Sutton than in his "first 5 years in the wilderness".

On the other hand, Hillary Biscay once ran 65 km as a training run under Sutton, but Sutton said, "I saw her in 3 years get her dream. I saw her win an Ironman, I saw her get on a great deal of podiums and I saw her beat some great athletes whose talent dwarfed hers. It is about the individual and their needs."

In 1999, he pleaded guilty in an Australian court to five sexual offences committed in the late 1980s against a teenage girl swimmer whom he was coaching.

After the trial, in which he was given a suspended sentence, he was banned for life from coaching in Australia, and Sutton's marriage ended in divorce.

Sutton later remarried, and is now based in Leysin, Switzerland, where he lives with his Swiss wife Fiona and their two daughters.

He has been described as "the coach with the most formidable résumé in triathlon", "widely recognised as one of the best triathlon coaches", and "widely considered to be the best and most unorthodox coach in the sport".

Sutton grew up, under pressure from a father who was a demanding swim coach, in a harsh environment and an extremely violent home.

Although he was a poor swimmer, he started swim coaching at the age of 10.

Sutton says he comes from "a long line of coaches" and both his parents were coaches.

Sutton was expelled from school at around age 15 for coaching during school time, and immediately started his own swim squad.

According to Sutton, the squad was very successful but ran into problems when the parents of his swimmers thought he was too young, so he switched to training greyhounds and racehorses.

Sutton took up boxing in his early 20s.

After training dogs and horses, Sutton returned to swim coaching, and became a nationally qualified swimming coach.

His appointment as coach to the Australian national triathlon team was controversial, as he had not been to college, nor had he any formal training.

Rob Pickard, the high-performance manager of Triathlon Australia before the 2000 Olympics said, "I wasn't on the panel that appointed him, but I was glad it did."

He added that unfavourable rumours that Sutton "destroyed" and "brutalised" his athletes were started around the same time by rival coaches, jealous of his appointment.

Sutton said, "I have no respect for the coaches who haven't paid their dues. In swimming, coaches work their way up over a 15-year time span. From the age of 15, I was coaching all the time."

Sutton emphasises the supreme importance of mental attitude, especially in Ironman, where, as he told Chrissie Wellington, "there are six times in every race where you enter a dark place of doubt and must have that passion to overcome."

Examples of the importance of mental strength given by Sutton include: determination; the need to remain calm and composed when things go wrong; building on mistakes rather than dwelling on them; dealing positively with injury rather than fearing it; resting the mind as well as the body—these are "the makings of a great triathlete", otherwise "success will always be elusive."

When asked the three most important components for Ironman, Sutton replied, "Consistency, strength and self discipline."

Sutton has an authoritarian coaching style, in which the athlete is expected to trust the coach completely, and to follow instructions without question.

At the start of her trial period with Sutton, he told Chrissie Wellington that she needed to "switch off" her mind and "follow orders and not question everything"—something she found very difficult to do.

He is sceptical of gadgets such as power meters and heart rate monitors, and prefers instead to draw on his experience as a swim coach and as a trainer of greyhounds and racehorses.

Siri Lindley, coach of 2010 and 2013 Ironman world champion Mirinda Carfrae, was coached by Sutton from 4th place to win two World Cups and an ITU World Championship.

In January 2011, she described Sutton as, in her opinion, "the best coach in the world", adding, "He is an incredible man, and deserves nothing but the utmost respect for the incredible work he has achieved."

Pete Colson, Ironman and ITU world champion Michellie Jones's husband and coach, said of Sutton, "If you look at results only, he's the best coach there is, no doubt about it", but added, "You look at his athletes, they're phenomenal for about two years and then they're gone."

Former pro triathlete Alec Rukosuev, who coaches at the National Training Center in Clermont, Florida, said, "Guys like Brett are the ones doing it right. He has a strong personality. All the great coaches do. They are like Napoleon. People will do anything he says."

Sutton has expressed the desire to retire from coaching in 2015 in order to focus on his projects that are geared towards social change.

He has started projects through teamTBB, such as TriCozumel, that locally promote youth exercise and as well as avoiding obesity and a life of drug use.