Thomas Veje Olsen interview
June 24th, 2009 by Nikola
I have met Thomas Veje Olsen, Challenge Copenhagen race organizer, in Cape Town after his Ironman South Africa race. I have been in a bad mood especially since I am obsessed with drafting for a year now, and I probably gave him a bit of a hard time. He was calm and polite. I am glad that Challenge Copenhagen is working out and I hope they will be able to minimize drafting. They also initiated a small Facebook drafting discussion.
Thomas please tell us a bit about your triathlon and work experiences?
I did my first full distance triathlon in 2006 in Kalmar in Sweden. Coming from a background in swimming in seemed like the way to go for new adventures in endurance training. At first I only wanted to do it one time, but when i crossed the finish line I was certain that I needed to do it again. To be able to conquer that distance was just amazing and I decided to put all my time and effort in to it. In 2007 I finished 42nd at Quelle Challenge Roth and did a lot better than I had expected. In 2008 i raced Ironman Frankfurt and this year I did Ironman South Africa.
I have just finished my master in Business specializing in innovation and business development. During my time in university I have worked with communication and PR in the largest real estate company in Denmark and in a small communication agency. Right now I am working full time on organizing Challenge Copenhagen.
What inspired you to organize a triathlon event? Especially such a big event like Challenge Copenhagen?
The inspiration comes from racing in Roth and Frankfurt. These two events are just amazing and have a huge impact on the local communities and on the athletes. The rest of the team behind Challenge Copenhagen and I felt that Copenhagen needed an event like this and we started to establish contact with public organizations and relevant stakeholders in Copenhagen. They all agreed to the plans and we then got in contact with the team behind Challenge Roth. Quickly we realized that we shared the same ideas on how to create a high quality race for athletes, spectators, sponsors etc. and we continued to work on the plans
When we met in Cape Town you seemed not very focused on drafting issue – it seems now you are paying a lot of attention to it – which strategies will you implement to combat drafting in Challenge Copenhagen?
First of all when we met in Cape Town we were at an early state in organizing the event and drafting issues was not high on our agenda at that time.
We have seen some races around Europe, read about some online, spoken to different athletes and there are always rumors about drafting afterwards. With the races becoming bigger and bigger it becomes more and more difficult to prevent it and it seems that the current rules and sanctions are not sufficient for the challenges modern long distance triathlon face. Therefore we have gone into dialogue with the athletes to come up with ideas on how to prevent it. We believe that getting into dialogue with them will create a culture that drafting is not OK to draft, as well as we get valuable ideas and knowledge on how to prevent it from the people who are actually suffering from it.
We will see what ideas we come up with, but some of the initiatives could be stop and go penalties for drafting in the first 30 kilometers to get the packs split up at an early stage, 10 meter markers on the road so nobody is in doubt how far behind to stay, and off cause sufficient amount of referees.
What do you think race organizers can do to prevent the drafting? What strategies can be implemented before the event?
I believe that preventing drafting is like the legs on a three-legged stool.
The one leg consists of the referees. They should be well educated and have the correct tools and resources to react against athletes who are drafting. It is the head referee’s task to keep a hard and fair line from the first information meeting until the end of the race.
The second leg consists the organizers. They are responsible for well educated and a sufficient amount of referees, What is more important, is that the organizers support the line set out by the head referee and stand behind the decisions made at any time.
The third leg is the single athlete. He or she is responsible for following the rules and prevent cheating – also when there is no referees in sight. It is important to have a strong culture going against drafting among the athletes.
Prior to the race communication about drafting issues are important. The organizers need to communicate their initiatives and engaging the athletes in the discussions – not just two days before the race but also in their communication months in advance. It is quite easy to make use of new medias and the race homepage to communicate to the athletes. In that way the athletes will know rules and initiatives and hopefully avoid drafting during the race.
Do you have any advice for other race organizers on how to handle drafting?
I do not think I hold a position to advice other organizers on how to prevent drafting. At Challenge Copenhagen we are using some of the strategies above and hopefully they will lead to a fair race in Copenhagen.
Any comments or advice for Say NO To Drafting project?
I think Say No To Drafting is a great initiative! It engages athletes and organizers to start looking at the issues and challenges regarding drafting. I believe Say No To Drafting should continue to build a strong bass of athletes through the use of social medias. It is the best way to gather interest at a global scale. The more athletes supporting the cause the better!