There’s something about Kenji.
Popular among athletes and fans alike on the WTCS circuit, it is hard to escape the feeling that Kenji Nener has been around for a while yet is also only just arriving.
In 2021, he enjoyed the twin peaks of a 14th place finish at the Tokyo Olympics and a first top-10 in a WTCS race by taking 9th in Abu Dhabi.
“There’s no doubt 2021 was the high of my career,” said Nener. Those successes, however, preceded a deep lull.
At the end of 2021, Nener did not know if he would return to elite triathlon. After Abu Dhabi, he found himself questioning his desire to continue, as many athletes did in the wake of the Olympics.
At that point, he had not committed to pursuing a second Olympic Games appearance in Paris. The result was an inconsistency in his training that compromised the first third of his 2022.
Over the summer, Nener rallied and regained his fitness. His best result of the season came soon after with a bronze medal at the Super League race in Toulouse. However, even that high was punctuated by an issue under the surface.
Nener had the misfortune to contract norovirus which was compounded by the decision to take on a track session within 24 hours. The consequence was that the virus totally destabilised his body and undermined the latter half of his season.
Despite the stomach issues that lingered thereafter, he continued to push both in training and racing as he sought to maintain his volume towards the end of the season.
By the WTCS Final, the problem had become chronic and prior to the race he lost his entire intake of fuel.
Vomiting episodes had become the norm in training and racing, almost to the point of occurring on a daily basis. Although Nener has since managed to rectify the issue, he has done so after the best part of six months.
Digestive issues are a common but often under-analysed aspect of elite performance. His coach tried to counsel him to rest, to abort the path he was taking.
“I wasn’t willing to stop,” admitted Nener. “I wanted to push forward.”
He described himself as obsessed with the sport and training. Thus, even as the issue deepened, Nener continued to dig at a furious rate.
“One of the main reasons for me to continue post-Tokyo was to do better, and to do better than what I produced in Tokyo is to push limits and really chase every avenue.”
In a sense, Nener’s 2022 encapsulates the balance between the emotional and the rational pillars of sport.
That Nener was nevertheless able to claw together a 15th overall in the 2022 WTCS despite the start and end of his season was remarkable.
Beyond pure performance, that 15th overall is also reflective of Nener’s current position. The impression persists of an athlete on the rise but one that is doing so under the radar, noticed by few and heralded by even fewer still.
Having learned from 2022, Nener recognises the need as an elite athlete to respect his body and that may be the key to unlocking the next stage of his potential.
Toulouse actually came in the early stages of his stomach issues and his success that day came after a week off. That, however, was not enough to prompt him to change course.
Once he had re-committed to triathlon, Nener “went heavy through everything”.
On the one hand it made him robust as an athlete. On the other, it came close to breaking him.
At times, Nener was substituting out easy runs in favour for additional threshold work. For over two months, he trained in Loughborough with a group including Alex Yee and Connor Bentley. Rather than simply adhering to the group’s training plan, he went harder.
“I took the Norwegian concept and threw it into the Loughborough concept.”
His time in Loughborough was part of a fairly nomadic existence in 2022, with time also spent in Font Romeu, Perth and Japan. Previously, he also trained with Kristian Blummenfelt and the Norwegian team.
At a time where elite training groups and triathlon bases are become more established, Nener comes across a little detached in the sport. He’s there, but only fleetingly.
Discussions are now taking place within Japanese high performance about where the elite athletes will be based going forwards.
Nener’s status with Japan, though, came about in unusual circumstances.
Having been schooled in Australia, completed university there and spent his entire athletic career, through the Junior, U23 and Senior levels, as an Australian athlete, Nener felt a “great attachment to Australia”.
While nothing has changed on that front, the crunch came in 2017.
A week before a training camp in Europe for the high performance squad that Nener was due to join, Triathlon Australia informed him that he would need to self-fund the trip.
This news came while he was still a student and living on a shoestring budget. The hammer of funding is not dissimilar to how Justus Nieschlag’s short course career recently ceased having been cut from the German national team.
Moreover, getting on start lists was an occasional challenge for Nener.
Things came to a head, however, at Nener’s WTCS debut in Montreal in August 2017.
“Within 24 hours of my arrival into Montreal, having self-funded the ticket cost out, the high performance director sat me down and basically said even if you get a top-14 or top-10, we aren’t going to look at any potential future starts.”
If Nener served as a domestique for WTCS medallist Jake Birtwhistle, flights and accommodation to WTCS races would be covered.
As a result of that, Nener “felt I didn’t belong at this level”. After so many years of sacrifice, he was disappointed at what appeared to be the fruits of his labours.
As the race in Montreal unfolded, Nener had a good swim and dropped back to ride for his team mate. After the race, the high performance director was happy with Nener’s work. Nener was anything but.
“Elite sport is extremely selfish in the sense that you need a lot of people behind you to support your ambition and a lot of people funding you, not just financially but with their time,” explained Nener. Being a domestique was not enough to justify the sacrifice.
With no other avenues open in Australian triathlon, that, it seemed, would be that.
Nener was about to graduate university and, having studied Actuarial Science with honours in Applied Mathematics, doors were open in several professional directions.
And then the phone rang.
Japan had made the collective decision to look into recruiting half-Japanese athletes such as Nener (his mother is Japanese).
“It was the best decision I ever made.”
Once Nener made the decision to switch to racing for Japan, he gave himself an ultimatum. He had no choice but to succeed in the elite environment. Crucially, the opportunity reinvigorated his Olympic dream.
On a personal level, the change also helped Nener to develop.
One key shift it brought about was helping him to “understand my mother’s culture and really understand what kind of heritage I have”.
Initially, Nener found the juxtaposition of the liberal culture of Australia and the more conservative Japanese society disorienting.
“I was never exposed to Japanese culture as much as I wanted to.” Although he visited the country annually, he grew up very much Australian.
Nowadays, he feels much more in touch with his dual heritage as opposed to a primarily Australian sense of self.
“There are aspects of the Japanese culture that feel I needed to learn the lessons of”, including respect, generosity and punctuality. “It made me a more balanced person.”
With the renewal of his dream and his growth in the personal sphere, Nener began to thrive.
In 2019 he returned to the WTCS for his second appearance. That year also saw him achieve his first World Cup top-10 (a 7th in Tongyeong) as well as winning his first international race at an Asia Cup in Shantou.
Entering 2023, Nener has become a pillar of the Japanese team.
After the WTCS Final in 2022, he took three weeks completely off, save for an occasional swim to maintain feel for the water. In doing so, he gave his body time to address the stomach issues and decompress after a long 2022.
Since then, he has hit the base work.
“Right now the threshold is really good, but the speed endurance is not quite there.”
The late timing of the 2022 Final created a challenge for athletes to recover for this season. In Nener’s view, the athletes that will peak in four weeks in Abu Dhabi will find it hard to sustain their form.
Meanwhile, he flagged athletes that didn’t race so much in 2022, such as Max Studer and Morgan Pearson, as those that could do well in Abu Dhabi. Likewise, athletes such as Csongor Lehmann that ended their 2022 a little earlier could be in form.
While Nener won’t be in perfect shape in Abu Dhabi, he will likely grow across the season.
Asked if he can win his first WTCS medal this season, he said, “I’ve got to believe I can. I’m going to throw the fridge at it.” (Translation from Australian: I will try my best).
“There are races on the calendar where Blummenfelt and Yee are specifically very good at.”
Nener’s strength, though, is how well rounded his skillset is. Indeed, he has few physical weak spots. However, “the biggest problem is the controlling of the mind.”
Some athletes can switch off and block out anything beyond the race; some struggle with that, particularly those that are a little more academically inclined.
As a result, this year, Nener will try to bring the “animalistic” side to fore in races.
In his eyes, a successful 2023 would be a WTCS podium and a top-10 in the Series. His results at the Tokyo Olympics and how he fared despite the difficulties of 2022 show that Nener has all the ability in the world to do so.
If he can achieve that, he might just take the steps out from the shadows and into the limelight. After years of toil and perseverance, 2023 feels like the year he will truly arrive.
In truth, there is no crystal ball that offers us insight into what will happen. At best, it is informed guess work. When we cast our eyes over the field for a dark horse, though, one thing is for sure.
There’s something about Kenji.
