> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.inthebeginningpodcast.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Courtney Atkinson: The Interview — Olympics, Regrets & Red Bull | EP 83 - URL: https://www.inthebeginningpodcast.com/ep-83-courtney-atkinson-the-interview-olympics-regrets-red-bull-the-mindset-behi/ - Published: 2026-04-24T06:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-08-21T01:26:23.000Z - Description: Liam turns the mic on Courtney for 83 episodes' worth of unanswered questions — Olympic near-misses, signing with Red Bull on a handshake, biggest regrets, and the mindset behind a 25-year career — recorded on the Gold Coast. - Author: Courtney Atkinson - Tags: Episodes, Main Feed, Olympics, Gold Coast Marathon, #Import 2026-07-28 20:58 *For the first time in 83 episodes, Liam flips the format and puts Courtney in the hot seat — the questions a fan named James once said he'd love to ask, about two Olympic Games, three Noosa wins, and a career most people only know the highlights of. Courtney's proudest moment isn't an Olympics or a World Series win, it's a Grade 10 schoolboy 3000m race — and his biggest regret is simple: not accepting enough help.* *The Red Bull story gets the full telling — a handshake deal in a Sydney office nearly 25 years ago that's never needed a contract to hold. There's the Simon Lessing race that humbled a 17-year-old Courtney, the Alistair Brownlee breakout that shut his own Olympic window, and an honest admission about quitting mid-race — mid-Ironman — by walking into a pool.* *It closes on the questions that matter for anyone raising a young athlete: specialisation versus generalisation, why Courtney's own running talent didn't show up until high school despite years of swimming, and why building the biggest aerobic base you can is still the best advice he's got.* ## In this episode - What was Courtney's proudest moment — and it's not what you'd expect - The handshake that started a 25-year Red Bull partnership - Racing Simon Lessing and Alistair Brownlee before they were legends - The Ironman he quit mid-race by walking into a pool - Does racing on TV make you perform bigger or smaller? - Specialisation vs. generalisation for young athletes ## Timestamps - **\[00:00\]** Liam flips the format to interview Courtney - **\[02:34\]** Proudest moment: a Grade 10 schoolboy 3000m race - **\[05:46\]** Biggest regret: not accepting enough help - **\[17:49\]** The handshake that started 25 years with Red Bull - **\[24:04\]** Racing Simon Lessing as a 17-year-old - **\[27:40\]** Alistair Brownlee's breakout race — and Courtney's closing window - **\[31:15\]** The Ironman he quit mid-race by walking into a pool - **\[55:57\]** Does racing on TV make you perform bigger or smaller? - **\[01:00:06\]** Specialisation vs. generalisation for young athletes ## Listen Listen on [Spotify](https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/inthebeginningpodcast/episodes/EP-83---COURTNEY-ATKINSON-THE-INTERVIEW---OLYMPICS--REGRETS--RED-BULL--THE-MINDSET-BEHIND-IT-ALL-e3i5nk4?ref=inthebeginningpodcast.com), or below on Apple Podcasts. ## Related In The Beginning episodes - [Ash Gentle & Josh Amberger: Triathlon, T100 and the Pregnancy That Changed Everything](https://www.inthebeginningpodcast.com/ash-gentle-josh-amberger-triathlon-t100-and-the-pregnancy-that-changed-everythin/) — the episode Courtney references on Ash's own Olympic near-misses - [Harry Garside: Olympic Boxing Bronze to T100 Triathlon](https://www.inthebeginningpodcast.com/harry-garside-olympic-boxing-bronze-to-t100-triathlon-fear-freedom-finding-the-f/) — another deep one-on-one athlete interview - [The Gold Coast Marathon guide](https://www.inthebeginningpodcast.com/gold-coast-marathon/) — "the experiment" Courtney keeps circling back to throughout this episode ## Full transcript Auto-generated transcript. Timestamps approximate. Hosts: Courtney Atkinson & Liam Flanagan. **Read the full transcript** \[00:00\] In the Beginning, episode 83\. Courtney, we're back with a special edition today — genuine news to you, you know nothing about it. No. For those just jumping in, maybe you've been brought to the podcast by the Gold Coast Marathon Series, which kicked off midweek on Wednesday, welcome. This is a podcast that's now 83 episodes of Courtney Atkinson and I talking absolute rubbish — no, Courtney, what we're going to do today, and you don't know about this, is over the last 82 \[00:31\] episodes, you and I have talked a lot about running, a lot about our lives, a lot about the world of running, running news, our personal running, all that. But I go back to a moment before we started this podcast, when we were planning it, and I was going for a run with Eddie Gordon's crew out at the Spit, a lot of whom were triathletes and runners, knew you, and were big fans of yours as an athlete. \[01:01\] One of the fellows, James, and I were running along, and he said to me, I'm so jealous you get to sit down with Courtney Atkinson once a week — I've been such a big fan of his, I've looked everywhere online to find interviews with him and he doesn't do a lot. And you haven't, right? But 83 episodes in, I've got a list of questions — I want to refocus this podcast just for today, on you, Courtney \[01:32\] Atkinson, episode 83\. You've loosened me up, Liam Flanagan — well, finally got you talking. I couldn't have done this episode in the first ten, you wouldn't have told us any stories. Two Olympic Games, three Noosa wins, an incredible triathlon career — I want to walk back through the memories, feelings, thoughts, emotions, regrets, all that sort of stuff. Alright, well, now I'm going to have to return the favour, if we do this tonight — no one gives a toss about my \[02:02\] career. Oh, they do. AFL is a very interesting topic, Liam. If only I'd gotten to that level — I'm going to start here. Looking back at your professional career, what was your proudest moment, honestly? The best win — let's say the best win, doesn't have to be a race win, just one proudest moment in racing. Up to you. \[02:34\] Let's keep it to racing, okay? My proudest moment, or win, was my Grade 10 3000 metre track race at GPS. You know how Gout Gout races now, you see him at Nationals and everything else — but when he first started getting on the map, it was this same GPS schools running thing. All the different athletics events at GPS were age-group related, \[03:06\] but the 3000 metres, the long-distance event, was always open — one race anyone from any grade could run. I got my first step-up in Grade 10 to run it, and the reason it's memorable — I went on to win, we had a goal, we believed if I could run under nine minutes it would win the race, so we set out to run a consistent split to hit nine minutes, and in the end I won. But the reason it's so memorable was the training, how we structured everything to \[03:40\] get to that goal. I think my downfall, even at Olympic level, was that I never again put that amount of structure and specifics around what we were doing, the way I did to win that 3000 metres at a schoolboy level. Do you remember the race? You talk about the timing goal and winning it, but do you remember running it? I don't remember running it so much, \[04:10\] but I do remember — QE2 Stadium, when they have the Commonwealth Games, we used to run it at the main stage in Brisbane. These days the old warm-up track is actually the athletics stadium, that's where you see all the Australian Championships — they actually considered renovating that stadium to host Olympic events, thank goodness they didn't. That's how old we're talking. But we used to run in the main Commonwealth Games stadium, where the Broncos used to play at one stage, \[04:43\] and the whole grandstand was full, because they used to make all the schools bring their cheer squads. Effectively, I've never run in another race with that big a crowd until the London Olympic Games — go figure, as a Grade 10 kid I had the biggest crowd I've ever run in besides the London Olympics. That's a cool story. I still remember the message I got from Lutzi, the Brisbane breakfast radio host, who \[05:16\] said he remembered turning up early to athletics because they'd heard about this kid from TSS and wanted to watch him run — that was really cool. Biggest regret or miss, again keeping it to your life as an athlete? Yeah, let's keep it to athlete stuff — biggest regret is I probably didn't accept as much help as I should have. \[05:46\] That's my biggest regret, but it's also what's made me, me. We talked about this in the last episode, even getting ready for the Gold Coast Marathon, what we're calling the experiment — I used to love trying to work out the formula for how to win, to be the best myself. Don't get me wrong, I had teams around me, a great team, we had all the AIS, \[06:16\] everything else — but in the end I'd still arc up, I wouldn't let people help me the way I probably should have, and that resulted in probably not getting the best out of myself performance-wise. I only realise that now, looking back and understanding the whole 360 of how sport works. Everything makes sense with hindsight, but if I'd just followed and done exactly what I did, even if I'd come out and won an Olympic gold medal, I wouldn't \[06:49\] be doing what I'm doing today, because I wouldn't have had those experiences, wouldn't have been moulded into someone who can think outside the box, be willing to try things and probably fail to a degree. If you fail when it's someone else telling you what to do, you don't have the same learning experience. So I failed a shitload. That's so interesting — that notion that \[07:20\] if we replayed your career ten different ways, some of those other scenarios might result in you being an Olympic medallist, maybe a gold medallist. But what's that Courtney Atkinson post-career? Would you be sitting here with the life you have now? I don't think I would, because it's a whole different mentality, you become a different person. And what's learnt \[07:51\] throughout — I'm talking specifically about elite sport here, but this could be one of our kids going through school, how they approach their job, whatever it is — the one thing I know I've always been is very individual, and when everyone zigs, I've often zagged. I don't want to do what everyone else is doing, which is really interesting in a modern world, because more and more you're \[08:23\] seeing more conformity now, and I get caught out — I'll often catch myself just following, and then it takes something to go, hang on, we need to do this differently. Even this podcast, I can talk openly here, there's a lot of people who started podcasting well before us, we weren't super early to it at all, we followed a hundred percent. \[08:54\] We followed, but I always think, it'd be pointless us sitting here doing exactly the same thing as the other big three running podcasts in Australia, because why would I listen to it — one, it's not interesting to us, and two, why would I listen to it? So whether it's sport or beyond sport, and it's not always perfect, but I've always gone, if everyone's going and doing that, \[09:26\] the way for me to actually be successful is to look at it differently — how can I approach it a different way? I had another question here, but you've kind of answered it — do you think your mindset helped or hindered your career overall? Both. Yeah, and you've answered that beautifully. Just to finish off with how your career went — do you think you fulfilled your potential? No, I don't think I — \[10:01\] from a pure performance point of view, I think I always took the long-term view of security over the short-term view of throwing everything out to get one result. Someone a lot more talented than I am can probably do both. But there was — and I hope this doesn't sound too egotistical — \[10:34\] I'd like to say a hundred percent, I was in positions where, if I'd got it right, I was in the mix to win, not the best, but the best in the world, at the Olympics. You were in the mix to win an Olympic gold medal or a medal, and that didn't happen. So did I perform to that potential? No, because it didn't happen. But then today, for my talent and what I got out of sport, did it \[11:07\] actually work? I'd say yeah, a hundred percent. I'm still sitting here today working with amazing brands in sport, still doing things in sport, when I've seen a lot of my peers who reached higher levels suddenly get cut off. It's so interesting to hear you talk about your career like that — that notion, and it's not egotistical, \[11:38\] because the truth is, anybody who's followed your career knows you had the potential to win an Olympic Games. What came to mind just then was the episode we did with Ash Gentle, and Josh, and the real bitter taste Ash still has when you talk to her about the Olympics, because she just hasn't executed to her potential there, even though she has everywhere else — and if you ask anybody who's the greatest-ever female Aussie triathlete, Ash Gentle's in that conversation. \[12:09\] So it's interesting to hear you talk about security long-term versus success short-term, because it's not something I'll ever experience, but as a fan of sport — footballers, basketballers, athletes, whatever — I look at your careers, watch you perform, and think, if you haven't won a premiership or a gold medal, well — there's two ways to go about it, right, \[12:39\] you can hit the peak, you see this a lot with swimmers but it's in all sports, come up quick, be great for a few years, win the biggest thing and then disappear just as quick. I can recall — one of my really early helps was the local bike store here, Noel Phillips, anyone who's been around triathlon a long time will know Noel, he owned Gold Coast Triathlete. \[13:10\] When I was about 16, I used to go down there with my bike, and he and the others taught me how to change tyres, change gears, the whole cluster, everything — I was learning bike skills through them at a young age. What I remember, walking in one day, this was probably later, once I'd started reaching more \[13:41\] Olympic standard — I remember saying, clear as day, to all of them, if I'm still doing this when I'm in my thirties, can you shoot me? Put me down, really, a hundred percent, I was like, there's no way you'll ever find me still racing at thirty. I remember it clear as day, shoot me. Do you remember why you felt that way? I was a young, brash kid, thinking I'll get it done and move on to the next thing. I don't remember exactly what, but what I know now is \[14:11\] it couldn't have been further from the truth — the longer I went on in sport, the more I wanted to be able to do this forever. Of course you're never going to race at Olympic level forever, but I wanted to stay fit, do things competitively, have those same feelings for as long as I could, and that's now the challenge and the goal, how do you extend that. Did you ever, because you \[14:43\] talked about that Year 10 win of the 3000 metres, doing this stuff at 16 — did you ever think about doing anything else? Did you identify as Courtney Atkinson the triathlete from that age, or was there ever a thought, I might want to be a lawyer or a doctor? No, there was a brief — weird things stick with me. I remember sitting in high school, form classes, you know, the \[15:13\] typical school-teacher stuff, what do you want to be when you grow up — I think it was around Grade 8, 9 or 10, and I remember saying, I'm going to be a Tour de France rider. That was me in Grade 8, 9 or 10, going, I'm going to be a professional bike rider — I was probably into triathlon by then too, we were all watching the Tour. I love it. So there was never really a notion, because by Grade 10 or 11 I was already racing and making money, there was never a notion \[15:45\] of what else to do. I still went on to university and studied marketing, did the same thing society expects. Interestingly, while I was racing that TV series I had a lot of success in, it was through a sponsor, a big consultancy firm, and I remember going into that organisation, they gave me some part-time work experience when I was about 19. \[16:17\] The funny thing is I now work closely with the main marketing team at Red Bull, understand all that hierarchy, what happened in that office — but at the time I was a young athlete they said, sure, come do some work experience, and I thought, this is going to be, I'm used to just going into a business, taking some photos, walking out, like they put you on the magazine cover and you walk out, that's how it works, right, that's how offices work. I remember pretty plainly, they gave me an old IBM, \[16:48\] and one day I got called into one of the offices, must have been one of the bosses, and they said, we need you to do a deep dive on all our competitors' websites and report back. I just looked at her, kind of blinked, I had no idea, I was there stealing some free stock from the store. But what it taught me — I lasted about six months, drove to Brisbane twice a week, into \[17:19\] George Street or somewhere — it taught me I never wanted to go back and work in an office in my life. On that, do you remember signing for Red Bull? Yep, remember it clear as day. Tell me the story — for those who don't need the explanation, Courtney, you still work for Red Bull, still race for Red Bull, \[17:49\] you've been associated with what I'd say is one of the strongest brands in elite individual sport in the world. You've got this incredibly long-running association — take us back to the beginning. It's interesting, it's over twenty-five years now, nearly twenty-five. It's amazing. To give listeners a bit of perspective, \[18:22\] in the same era it was myself, Mick Fanning and Robbie Maddison — and now, talking about imposter syndrome, I feel like a fish out of water compared to those guys. Over time there've been so many athletes who've come and gone through that programme, but the consistency is, I just did what I did, and I think a lot of that \[18:54\] left-field thinking, doing things differently to everyone else, probably contributed to it. But the most interesting thing, in today's sport world — you sign, say a running athlete signs with ASICS, I guarantee it's a 25-page legal document, if you get caught for drugs you're eliminated, if you do this you do that, clauses, obligations to fulfil, these days they probably ask you \[19:25\] to do your own content marketing, the legality of these documents for athletes signing these days is just crazy. When I first signed with Red Bull, I'll go back one step — a good friend of mine, still to this day, CT Chris — he worked at the local bike store, made my first ever bike under my father's supervision, and he went on to work in events \[19:57\] at Red Bull. When Red Bull came into Australia — this was a couple of years after they'd arrived — he was involved around Red Bull, and there was a directive to find a triathlete. Red Bull were very into triathlon in the early days, really focused on it. So when they were looking, that's how the association came about — he knew me, I was winning on TV in Australia at the time, and the next thing I knew I was in Waterloo, down in Sydney, at some \[20:27\] random office meeting — one of my really good mates, Luke Hannon, who's stayed a friend this whole time, and it was a handshake, that was it. He met me as a personality check, obviously with some good research behind it, people saying they believed I was the right guy — I'm making the assumption on the other side of the table, but I know how it works now. Back then, that day \[20:58\] on the table, it was, yeah, we don't do contracts, if you trust us, we trust you, you're the right person, we're the right brand, if it works, we keep going. Did you have a manager at that stage? Early days I did — were they involved in that process? No, no, no, this was — isn't that interesting — very personal. I had a manager when I first won the world junior championships, a big management firm out of \[21:30\] Brisbane, they managed people like Grant Hackett, Sam Riley, John Eales, Brad Beven — they were great, got me some great deals too. But by that stage I'd worked out — this is where independent Courtney figured out, pretty much, I'd rather tinker with all this myself. If this is coming to me directly, why throw a middle man in and pay 25 percent or whatever it was, I can do this on my own. And again, coming back to your earlier question, maybe that's been a \[22:01\] hindrance and a blessing — those things can be true. In this case, with Red Bull, I think it's been a blessing. It was a handshake in the early days, and over time it's evolved into what's now a 25-page contract. But in the sense of the legalities, doing things \[22:31\] the personal way, and it's hard because the world moves on, but you feel so much more obliged, so much more buy-in to something than if it's purely transactional. If you've walked into an office, met somebody, and a handshake's been done person to person, that's a much harder deal to walk away from, to renege on, to do the wrong thing by, than \[23:01\] if your manager puts a 25-page contract in front of you and says sign this — if you walk away, or do the wrong thing, or it's not working out, you're done, there's no relationship there. In an ironic way, it was almost the perfect test — no one wins or loses, everyone either wins or just walks away, and the handshake's still binding to this day. \[23:31\] Is it? I don't know, you'd have to check with your mate Luke, I doubt it. Coolest moment — look back over your career, you've already told some very cool stories on this podcast over the years, the race in Brazil, Santa Rita, is that one? The moments in that Red Bull head office — I'll give you three. \[24:04\] Now I've got to try and remember all three. From a racing point of view — I've told this story, wasn't the very first time — as a 17-year-old I was flown across to Europe, as the best underage in the country, and they started sending me around Europe a little to race. The first race was up in Holland, I won my first-ever race in Europe. But the one I remember was in Germany, I can't remember exactly where, but the \[24:35\] triathlete at the time was Simon Lessing — he was the man, like Mark Allen for Iron Man people, Dave Scott versus Mark Allen — well Simon Lessing was the equivalent for Olympic-distance triathlon. I turned up to this race in Germany as a 17-year-old, Simon Lessing was there plus other pros, but he was the best \[25:07\] all-rounder in the world. As a 17-year-old, I could swim like the clappers, just come out of training with Grant Hackett, jumped in and literally sat on his feet for the whole swim, got on the bike, rode the whole race because it was drafting — I could sit on his wheel, couldn't take a turn, but sat on his wheel that whole race as a 17-year-old, then got off and he absolutely destroyed me on the run. But I walked away thinking, imagine being a young 16-year-old football player and you've got to go out and play \[25:38\] centre alongside Reece Walsh — it was like that, except I never scored the try, I just got to play alongside him. That was, I say I don't have heroes, but he was the biggest thing there at the time. That's not to share someone else's story, but I'm going to do it anyway — Jude Bolton, former Sydney Swans premiership player, ever met Jude? No — one of the great blokes, \[26:09\] as good a bloke as he seems. Anyone who's watched AFL and seen Jude Bolton play over the years, he was one of those players opposition fans loved. Jude's got an amazing story about when he got drafted from Melbourne to play for the Swans — they used to train at Queens Park in Sydney, right next to Centennial Park, and he remembers one of his first training sessions in pre-season, doing a drill, comes off a cone with the football in hand, and Tony Lockett's leading at him. \[26:40\] Plugger, right? Same sort of thing you're talking about, oh my gosh, I'm out here mixing it with my heroes — he tells this great story, he remembers thinking, oh my gosh, I'm about to kick a footy to Tony Lockett, the Tony Lockett, and he sprayed it off, and Plugger just stared holes in him. What's interesting is I can only imagine, to Tony Lockett, or at the time Simon \[27:10\] Lessing, it was probably so insignificant to them. But you never know the impact certain things have on certain people's lives at any time — it doesn't have to be in a race, it can be any walk of life, a young fellow walking into the radio station, seeing you and Bizzy on breakfast radio, or you on the goal. You never know when you have that effect on someone young. Did you ever, and I know what you'll say, you'll say you never had the standing \[27:40\] of a Simon Lessing, but to the next generation you probably did — do you remember being at that point of your career where you had 17-year-olds trying to jump on your feet, ride with you on the bike? You never know when you're in that position — the race I do remember was Alistair Brownlee's breakout race. At the time I was effectively world number one, world number two, \[28:12\] flip-flopping through this series, winning or getting second. At the end of the season we went to Rhodes, the Greek islands — probably the best triathlon swim I've ever done, off the main harbour, across the reefs in crystal-clear water, a beautiful swim, the rest of the race maybe not so much. Alistair Brownlee must have been eighteen, I don't know, but at that stage I didn't even know who \[28:44\] the kid was. He got on the bike, we were all playing silly buggers as the runners, knowing we'd run real fast, and he just took it to us and broke away. I can't remember the results exactly, whether I got second or third, it was myself, Chris Gemmell and Alistair Brownlee, can't remember whether Alistair held on in the end. But I remember on the bike, this kid just riding, trying to break \[29:15\] away from the pack, and thinking, holy shit. The next year, the very first year of that World Series, Madrid was always the first stop, and I'd always come off a good Aussie summer, pretty much always placed well in Madrid, one of the races I knew I'd do well in. The very first breakout year for him, Alistair Brownlee \[29:45\] came out and won that race, I was second, Javier Gómez third, and I thought, this kid — my window was going to be in this period, and it just got closed, just got shut. That's okay. Do you ever quit mentally in a race — did you ever have a moment where you thought, nah? \[30:15\] Yeah, heaps. I wasn't the strongest mentally, really — my family remind me of this. Was that always the way you went, or something you tried to work on, knowing that feeling mid-race? I think I was too — pragmatic's the word, not logical, but pragmatic, in that if I'm not winning today, \[30:45\] it was never a hundred-metre-sprint mentality of I'm the best in the world. To give you an example — and I know full well this isn't the best mindset to promote, we're being honest here, not trying to sell people a \[31:15\] text — there was an Ironman-distance race I was doing, might have been Batam Island near Singapore. I'd gone out on the bike, gone flat stick really hard, was out leading, got on the run, ten K into the run I was cooked. The run was four laps around a resort, past a pool each lap, the most humid, hopeless hot day, and I was gone, no recovering, nothing. \[31:45\] I just stopped and got in the pool. You were leading? I was leading the race, but I knew it was over, I was just going to walk, and I let the field come past. That day was done. I've never heard this story before. Well, you'd fully go, that's a cop-out, he just gave up, but in my mind, this is useless, I'm gone, why would I keep going — because you're a professional athlete, the goal was to win money, \[32:17\] but you knew you weren't going to win money that day, so why would I hurt myself any more? Which is pragmatic, but it's not the way to build a kid's picture-perfect athlete mindset. What did — you said there were a number of moments like that, how did it feel to have people in your family question your mental toughness? \[32:48\] Oh, I'm okay with it. But did you try to change it at all? Yeah — you know, if you had a weak swim leg you'd train differently, so did you try to change your mindset? Yes, I worked with different psychologists, not specifically going, you're weak, how do we toughen you up — because on the flip side, I consider myself, with the right motivation, one of the toughest people around. Interesting, \[33:19\] so I'm getting to where I'm ready to get — it's the motivation that dictated everything. Motivation dictates your mindset, and if — I'm sure a psychologist would say you need to change your motivation to make it work for you — but when I'm very clear on what that motivation is and the outcome I want, if the motivation's taken away, why not move on to the next thing and do \[33:51\] something properly. That's probably not the answer most athletes would give, and it might be why I never quite got to the Olympic gold medal, but at the same time, thinking long-term and about longevity, it actually worked really well for me. Leads beautifully into another question — I love that you've landed on motivation. Michael Jordan's famous for creating fake beef — if you've watched The Last \[34:24\] Dance on Netflix, or read any books, there's suggestions that throughout his career he'd create fake animosity, claim he'd been slighted by players, teams, organisations, whatever, to motivate himself, fire himself up. Did you ever do that? No. Could you? Did you even attempt it? No, that wasn't a gear I wanted to go into, it wouldn't have worked. \[34:54\] No, I don't think it would have. What was the best motivation for you, then? Money — well, probably not, that sounds awful, actually, no, it wasn't money, security was the motivation. Interesting, this comes back to what we talked about earlier — I always saw it as, you're a professional, your goal, you can have two goals: one is \[35:27\] purely competitive, to win, and winning is part of the profession, keeps the security going. But the end outcome for me was always taking the decision that favoured longevity over a one-off result. How far into your career did you get married and have your first child? You talk about security, and early on, as a 17-year-old going over to Germany that first time, security was \[35:58\] not really the right word, but you're probably not thinking, I need to make sure I've got a gig at 25, 26, 27 — probably not, but pretty early on I started working out the business side of what worked. So at what point did your career become about more than just you — marriage, kids — you were still living and competing based in Europe when you became a dad. Yeah, that's the reason we half- \[36:29\] moved, myself and my wife had our first child relatively early, because we were away, on our own. Did becoming a dad change your attitude at all? Not really, no, similar mindset, same motivation. When you've got to provide for more people, there's obviously more stress around making sure the outcome works out, because on your own there's a little more slack. But that same purpose — think of it like this, \[37:02\] you're on a ship, that ship needs to keep going for years and years, it can get sidetracked a little, take a bit of hurt, get stuck in the strait for a while, \[37:33\] but as long as I get through eventually, I'll get the oil there, as long as — the only thing that can set that off is hitting a landmine, and then all shit hits the fan. I did not think we'd get a shipping-lane analogy on this podcast. So, using that analogy, you're trying not to hit a landmine? Yeah, we'll call it a mine. In this case, a US warship. Did you ever see drugs in your sport? \[38:07\] No. Did you hear of drugs? Yes. Did you suspect? Tried not to. You wanted to be a Tour de France rider, you'd have been competing around when all the Lance Armstrong stuff came out, weren't you? Yeah, and I was a believer, a hundred percent. What was the chat within triathlon like when that happened, given cycling and triathlon are kind of cousin sports? \[38:40\] I didn't really think about it when I raced, and I think that was a good way to be — you never considered it, because you had rules, and if you started thinking someone's cheating, how do you race them, how do you get on the start line believing that and still race properly? So maybe I was naive, maybe I wasn't, it never really came up beyond my racing career. Looking back now with age and common sense, you start to see some \[39:12\] very clear patterns — I can say this quite openly, if a whole Tour team's getting pinged, and they're training at the same bases as national triathlon programmes, you draw your own conclusions. I try not to even \[39:43\] think about it, because what can you do, you can't wind back twenty years and start retroactively officiating things that may or may not have happened. All I know is here in Australia, I was at the AIS at 16, peeing in a cup in front of people from day one, being told you may become an elite athlete, you are conditioned \[40:14\] here in Australia that you're going to get tested — watch left, watch right — not to say certain personalities don't slip through cracks, but in my experience the Australian programmes were just so stringent on that. I spent twenty years of my life having someone come and take blood at my kitchen table for dinner — I just, I think in a way, the \[40:45\] story's always going to come out, people are always going to try to cheat at times. It's the idea of secrecy, right — easy to keep a secret between two people. I think the hardest thing in today's world, and it'll keep moving as technology improves, is the grey area. You can stipulate what drugs are illegal, but where the grey is, who knows what's going on out there. Ever get starstruck? I've seen \[41:16\] you with Jelly Roll — aside from that, I've seen you interact with elites and you don't bat an eyelid. Was there any moment across your career, pre-Jelly-Roll, where you thought, this is a pretty cool moment, getting to stand here and talk to whoever, because I'm good at riding, running and swimming? I'm sure there is, but nothing really comes to \[41:47\] mind — I think it's more, I guess it's imposter syndrome, but I got there. If it's not so much people, when — what was unique about my career, I suppose, was that when you work in an organisation, you \[42:17\] probably enter as a junior, work your way up the hierarchy, maybe hoping to be a manager one day, and depending on motivation, maybe the boss. I've realised, once I'm outside sport, there are rooms, and rooms, and rooms — \[42:48\] I always got to walk into another room. I was lucky enough that, because of the partners I had in my sport, and who I was associated with, I often just got to walk straight into the top room, because of the relationship I had with that business — whether it was FedEx, or I remember going to the F1 with Qantas, I'm there as a guest, and at the time Liesl could have been in the room too, being \[43:20\] sponsored by them, but it's the CEO, the director of whoever put the programme together, and that's the table you're sitting at, and you've got no idea, no real right to be there, no knowledge to be in that situation. And they often call on you — can you say a few words, can we do a Q&A with you — and it's funny, because now I'm on the other side of it, we bring in a young athlete to speak, and I sit there as the older athlete going, oh god, \[43:54\] what are they thinking, that was me — I know what I was thinking, what were they thinking back then? But you just went on with it. We won't give anything away yet, but we've got some athletes on the way — that might be a good question to ask them, are you surprised anyone cares what you think, are you surprised what you've got to say matters — because if you're a young \[44:28\] athlete, you're in a room full of high-powered executives, decades of experience, net worth of god knows what — not that that's the only measure of a person — but corporate life is hierarchy, and when a 20-year-old stands up and someone says, tell us what lessons you've got to pass on, it's — I think you often get put in situations, and it's never the fault of the \[44:59\] athlete, it's always a fault of the organisation, putting you in situations that just don't make sense. Can you think of any of those situations? My most embarrassing one — I've shown the FedEx shot of me, half athlete, half FedEx delivery man, similar era, must have been around the Beijing Olympics. He was the Asia \[45:31\] Pacific general manager, or president of Asia Pacific at the time, and the agency running it for some reason had this great idea — I'm a triathlete, we've got the boss of Asia Pacific, let's put them on a tandem bike in Martin Place. And Courtney, you're the athlete, so wear your skin suit — you're getting paid, so you just do it. \[46:01\] But now, if someone asked me to do that today — I was riding around Martin Place with this guy, and I'm thinking, from his perspective, he must have been thinking, what am I doing, what the hell am I doing, sometimes that's just \[46:31\] part of the challenge of being a professional athlete — your body, your physical wellbeing, is your income, and the moment one of those things starts to slip, your livelihood's at risk. You talked about security — guilty pleasures while you were an athlete, did you ever struggle at the fridge or in the cupboard? Tim Tams. I had plenty of guilty pleasures, but the thing was, the amount we were training, you \[47:01\] could get away with pretty much anything. But was it actually the best thing for your body? Probably not. Was it the best thing mentally? Yes — we've talked about this a lot, people want this portrayal of elite athletes as perfect robots, but I think you'll find every elite \[47:34\] athlete's got their quirks, why they're not — there's got to be an outlet. Play a little game with me — you're exempt, we're not putting any part of Courtney Atkinson in this, a bit of a nerdy triathlon question — design the perfect triathlete. Whose swim leg, over your career or currently, would you take, who's the best? \[48:05\] Oh, we're not taking swimmers, they've got to be triathletes — who's the best swimmer who's a triathlete? Craig Walton. Craig Walton was the best. Let's keep it to Aussies so people know who we're talking about. What about on the bike? Miles Stewart, Miles Stewart had an ability. Craig Walton's swim into a Miles Stewart \[48:36\] bike. And on the run, can't be yourself — in my time, the best triathlon runner, the one who showed it when he was on, was Peter Robinson. I remember Sunday mornings watching him on the TV series, hot and cold, rocks and diamonds, when he was on. So let's assume we're getting the best version of him — but the irony of course, \[49:10\] if I asked most other triathletes this, they'd probably say you. The irony is, if you asked who was the best flat-out runner off the bike, actually, I'd be in the mix. But if you asked who was the best triathlon runner off the bike consistently, Greg Bennett, when he was on, in his little period — I'd never say he's the best flat runner, but he could run off the bike sometimes like the clappers, \[49:41\] that's the beauty of triathlon, we've talked about it, it's not just running. Which is interesting right now, because the young guys we're all talking about, the Alex Yees and the Haydens and Matts, these are the best runners becoming the best triathletes — it hasn't always been like that throughout the whole history of the sport, it's changed. What about from a technical, transition perspective — was there anyone you raced who you thought, he makes up ten seconds in transition? \[50:11\] That was my strength, actually, when we raced on TV, that was my strength. But Brad Beven was the one guy who managed to do it too — it's not just how quick you do the transition, it's how quick you can run instantly out of it. If you can, when we raced sprint-orientated races, there's three parts to transition — any young triathletes \[50:43\] listening — it's the positioning on the way in on the bike, if you can save your energy, get in the right spot, get off the bike first, you're automatically in the lead, but you don't want to be leading for the last K and cook your legs, because then you're not going to run out quick. There's a tactic to it, a process to get the shoes on and off, but the real kicker was always how quickly you could run the first 400 without blowing up. Gotcha, yep, Brad Beven. \[51:15\] With the way you talk about the sport, with your mindset of experimenting, zigging when everyone zags — have you ever wanted a coach? Sometimes I think it'd be interesting, but no, because I quite enjoy — \[51:45\] mentorship's the wrong word, I like having a sounding board. I like being the devil's advocate, going, have you thought about looking at it this way — there's the name for your coaching academy, if you ever start one, the Devil's Advocate. I'm training with the Devil's Advocate. The process, and we've talked about this with running, but it's the same with triathlon, even across \[52:15\] the coaches I've trained with — the Pat Clohessys in running, right through to your Col Stewarts, your Brett Suttons, all of the triathlon coaching I've seen at the AIS, the standard of athletes I've trained with across multiple sports, including the pool — I'm still not confident to coach someone and say, here's a structure, here's the outcome, it's still a bit of guesswork. You've still got to have that end point in mind — this is what's going to \[52:46\] come out of it — which is scary to me, when I see some of the advice out there, because if I don't feel confident to do it. Sure, but someone's got to do it. Well, and someone's got to do it as well. When you look back — you talked about it in the Wednesday episode, for people who might not have heard the Gold Coast Marathon Series Wednesday episode — you talked about four training days in a seven-day block, and the different methodology \[53:18\] they've introduced in New Zealand, four days on, one off, versus what Kaylee McKeown does, three on, one off. The point about coaching is, yes, data, experience, but at some point a coach is someone prepared to go, we're going to do this — the decisiveness and confidence to back all that information and put it into practice with an athlete. Where I'd be comfortable is within a \[53:49\] team — I said early on, one of my biggest regrets is I didn't accept help I probably should have. Working within a team, with one clear voice communicating to an athlete, could be very effective, very \[54:21\] effective. I like the idea of multiple sounding boards, because you need one captain in the end, able to communicate — that's really important, but behind that captain there needs to be a team to bounce off, go, hey, you're my devil's advocate, what do you think of this. It's the football coach model, isn't it, how football clubs operate — he's your head coach, the buck stops with Michael Voss, Josh Hannay, Chris Fagan, whoever it may be, \[54:53\] but they have a team, Damien Hardwick, line coaches responsible for X, Y, Z. At the end of the day, if things aren't working — you're seeing that in triathlon federations now, that's where they've kind of got to. I'm assuming it'll take years. Alright, quickfire, this has been really fun, and I know it's put a lot — you don't work in radio by any chance? I appreciate you carrying us through this episode, it's been all Courtney all the time. No, the questions are on point, \[55:25\] I'm just going to throw some of these at you quickly. Favourite shoe you remember racing in? I can't remember the exact model, but it was a New Balance slip-on, Japanese model. Point in your career you felt most unbeatable — can you take us back to a year, a time when you just thought — talk a little about that mentality. Early — must have been around the early 2000s, when we were racing on TV in the short-course stuff, I just worked the puzzle out. \[55:57\] Did racing on TV make you perform bigger or smaller? Bigger. Really? Yeah, for sure, no question. Talk to me a bit about that. You can see why footy players — hopefully this comes across right — if you were a triathlete today, and even at the back end when I raced and won a World Championship Series race \[56:28\] in Hamburg, or Germany, sorry, Hamburg's in Germany — there's a faction of people back in Australia, die-hard followers, who might know, if they follow that closely, but here, all your peers, everyone else in Australia — this is really awful to say — no one gives a shit. The bigger the pond, when I raced as a triathlete overseas, I'm insignificant. \[57:00\] But when we raced on Channel 10, prime time 3pm on a Sunday afternoon, just like everyone tunes in for footy, you couldn't go to Netflix, couldn't go anywhere, you watched us, or Hogan's Heroes, or Getaway, there was no other sport on. You watched triathlon for \[57:31\] two hours. So why did that make you — well then I could, if I went to any organisation, and I was a little bit past it by the time I noticed, because there was more choice by then. But in the real early days, Brad Beven, Greg Welch, guys like Trevor Hendy, they were like football players, known, national heroes. Do you think some of your competitors shrunk under that spotlight? I don't know, \[58:01\] I don't know. But I always used to like — in hindsight, I liked performing better when people were watching, it's like art, like entertainment in a way. It's the old advantage of, why do you race — you could go and set a time, or do a time trial, set a time, most people do that now and put it on Strava and Instagram. \[58:32\] They're still looking for the audience, aren't they, case in point. I like that. If Courtney doesn't become a triathlete, but the running ability's evident, do you end up a trail, track or distance runner? Road, yeah. What sort of distance? I think I would've suited a marathon, I was a bit heavy-set at the time, \[59:03\] I can only speculate based on where I was and what I did — you asked earlier about three best race memories, this probably isn't one, but I recall it clearly — I was at the AIS track as an under-15, got second in the nation in the 3000 metres, and Marty beat me. Marty went on to be, when I went on to race at Beijing and London in triathlon, Marty was our \[59:34\] marathon runner. So it's not to say I definitely would have, but the same pathways, running was my forte, put it that way. To finish this up — and it's a bit of a selfish question — we've got a lot of listeners with kids potentially into running, I know some friends whose kids just had their first crack at \[01:00:06\] the Lew Carrott Memorial, the Phoenix Triathlon, went out and gave triathlon a go for the first time. Do you remember a leap in your own performance? I ask because there's a constant conversation, I have it with friends at surf lifesaving mornings, at soccer, all that — specialisation versus generalisation. The examples cited, for every Tiger Woods and Serena Williams who \[01:00:37\] specialised with very strong parents guiding their careers, I'd speculate there are millions of kids who specialised and failed. Were you a generalist? Play lots of sports? Was there a leap moment? Yep, generalist for sure, until my parents put me into everything, picked up tennis rackets, four sports, everything, even at high school, until they literally said, you can't do it all anymore. \[01:01:07\] I was still trying to jump into the rugby team where I could. So when did that specialisation happen for you? True specialisation happened probably around Grade 8, 9, until 14, 15\. It was also dictated partly by the school I was at, some experts identifying it, but also direction. But the thing is, when you \[01:01:38\] asked the direct question about running — at primary school, I wasn't showing the form of a national-level runner, no way. All through primary school, I was a state, national-level swimmer, building a massive aerobic base, but the running didn't connect. It was weird. So yes, there was a jump — between primary and high school, suddenly in high school I could just run. \[01:02:09\] I mean, run — I went from being okay, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh at primary school cross-country, because I was aerobic, but not the runner, to suddenly running away from everyone in my age group except a few kids. There was no real explanation, which is why I always say there's no exact formula — is it right or \[01:02:41\] wrong, because on one hand, without that massive aerobic base from swimming and other sports, does the talent come through in running, do you have the aerobic ability to go and run? But then I look at a lot of runners who succeed in their twenties, mid-twenties, without a great aerobic background, who just suddenly come on as runners. That doesn't make sense either. Now we've got the Cameron McEvoy case study. But I'm strong on \[01:03:11\] this — he doesn't get the same outcome without the aerobic base. One thing that's always stuck with me, from that experimentation era when I was on my own as a triathlete, through that Armstrong-type era — I remember, and this was true training experimentation, not that other sort — Carmichael Training Systems was his coach at one point, \[01:03:41\] and as triathletes we'd try to decide on training styles, and it always stuck with me — it doesn't matter what sport you're doing, a bit like the Lydiard method for people who know running training, there's a lot of different ways to achieve it, East German methods, a whole range of different approaches, you can periodise training, but the one that's had the most success over time \[01:04:15\] is always building a massive aerobic base, the biggest base you can, then specialising into your sport. Doesn't matter if you're a car — I remember they used to train on bikes in that Carmichael system, NASCAR drivers, same premise, if your heart rate's up, you've got to concentrate. And the guys I've had the most fun training with in my career aren't the runners, it's the motorsport \[01:04:46\] athletes, guys who can really push themselves outside their own sport, but it's still about getting them to perform in their sport. So if there's one thing I'd say I didn't get enough help with throughout my career, didn't get the right help at the right times, maybe that was my own fault — but the one thing I'd say to any parent is, it's not about specialisation, the best way to give your children the best opportunity, later on, except for specific ball \[01:05:17\] sports and things needing technique, is, if it's in the realm of endurance performance, the more generalised, biggest aerobic base you can build, gives you the best chance to perform as an adult. Well, for James and anyone else who's ever wanted a deep dive on the athlete that is Courtney Atkinson, we can't do much more than we just did. Nah, you're the best at it, Liam, mate. There we go — a bit of a different episode of In The Beginning, EP 83, \[01:05:47\] I hope you enjoyed it. For those planning their own endurance block, on board for the Gold Coast Marathon or half marathon next week, we've got the great Benita Willis jumping in to talk training specifically — and for the half marathoners out there, we've heard you, next Wednesday half-marathon tips from Benita Willis. So Courtney, you can breathe now, mate — you've done very well. Thank you, Liam. We'll see you next week.