When rising through the ranks of elite triathlon, the goalposts are always shifting.
It usually starts with trying to qualify for an first international team, such as at the World Junior Championships. The following season, the target can become a higher finish at the same event, or maybe winning a national Junior title. First Senior international starts can follow, as can appearances at U23 championships.
From Continental Cups to World Cups and to the WTCS, there is always another level to strive towards, always another layer of the sport to uncover for the rising athlete.
Simon Henseleit is currently making such an ascent through the ranks yet he holds a different attitude towards targeting the next level.
“Usually I’m quite confident going into races,” he said, “but I don’t set myself any goals because I don’t want to limit myself. If you can do better than your goal you will probably ease off once you have already reached it.”
Likewise, he noted that a goal that seems unattainable can equally compromise an athlete’s focus. As a result, he prefers “to go into a race with the target to be proud afterwards and perform in the best possible way on that day.”
It is an approach that has served him well thus far. He flourished at the Junior level, winning a European Junior Cup, logging top-10 finishes at the 2019 World Junior and European Junior Championships, and, perhaps most memorably, winning the European Junior Mixed Relay title in the same team as his sister, Franca.
In 2023, Henseleit has made further leaps forward. He won a medal at the German Championships and followed in up with a personal best WTCS finish, placing 14th in Hamburg. The no-limits strategy therefore appeared to be paying off for him.
Then came Pontevedra.
“For the World U23 Championships I actually changed my approach,” admitted Henseleit. In a shift from his standard method, he heaped pressure upon his own shoulders.
“I knew it was my last chance to win this title and my training results were also quite promising. So I really wanted that win and played my cards well.”
A smart tactical performance had put him with the leaders out of T2. After looking comfortable on the first lap of the run, Henseleit then broke clear.
“I was a bit surprised to gap the others already after two of four laps, but Baptiste Passemard held the 10 second gap until the last kilometre so it was still a hard race to the line.”
Despite Passemard’s efforts, the gap did not come down. Despite the pressure, Henseleit was the World U23 champion.
Heading into the race, “I would say that my overall feeling was the best I’ve ever had. I had to hold back on the easy sessions and was hitting decent numbers in every discipline.”
“I can remember one specific session on the bike which made me really confident. I had already done this session a couple of times in the last year so I could compare my data with the ones before. It was around two-and-a-half weeks before Pontevedra of 50 minutes continuous as 1 minute hard, 1 minute easy. The hard minute was supposed be controlled and the easy minute with some pressure on the pedals. I held like 375W on average (so probably 470/280) and it was 15W more than on the previous sessions. At the end I still felt like I could do another 20 minutes so I knew my shape was good.”
The lead-up to Pontevedra was also the first time that Henseleit had trained at altitude prior to a race. He felt his camp in St. Moritz helped him a lot and the results speak for themselves.
After winning the World U23 crown, he then claimed his first World Cup medal in Rome.
“The field was one of the best I’ve ever raced,” he said of Rome. “I think that I profited even more from the altitude effect than in Pontevedra. I just had an amazing feeling already the day before the race and really felt in control. I maybe messed up my T2 a bit but I could push all the way to the finish line afterwards and was really stoked with taking my first World Cup podium.
With his season wrapped up, Henseleit can unwind and begin to think about 2024. As things stand, there is one male slot left on the German Olympic team. Given his form, Henseleit could sneak into the conversation for it.
However, the selection policy is not in his favour.
The third slot will go to the best ranked man in the top-30 of the Olympic rankings. Right now, Jonas Schomburg leads Lasse Nygaard Priester in the German race while Henseleit is sat in 76th place. Mathematically it is possibile for him to get there, although he would realistically need to log top-5 finishes in the first three WTCS events of 2024 and to add similar high results at one or two World Cup races before the end of the qualification window.
For that reason, Henseleit acknowledged that it is almost impossible for him to make the cut this time around. Instead, breaching the top-10 of the WTCS for the first time is a more reasonable aspiration, even if Henseleit is not one for hard and fast goals.
It is no secret that the WTCS is a different beast to even the World Cup circuit. Even with a medal in the latter, Henseleit is under no illusions of the challenge awaiting him to progress in the former.
“It’s definitely the intensity of racing and quality of field. In other races you can often compensate a deficit after the swim or rest a bit on the bike before it gets serious on the run. In the World Series it’s hard to do any of that and you have to be focused all the time. It usually feels quite natural to me to move in the field and position myself well but this year in Hamburg I really felt that I had to focus on that and fight for every position, especially on the run. When I was easing off a bit before a turn I immediately lost 2-3 positions.”
As it happens, though, Henseleit’s hardest race of the year did not come at the WTCS level. Nor did it come at the Paris Test Event in which he ran on a broken toe.
“The hardest race this year was definitely the World Cup in Karlovy Vary,” he said. “I had a bit of bad luck in the start of the swim and almost lost 40 seconds in the water. I started the ride together with 15 other guys and together with my friend Tjebbe Kaindl we were riding so hard that we caught up to the lead pack after 30 minutes on the bike. On the way we lost 11 guys but I was also so smashed that the following 10km run felt way longer!”
Such bad luck in the swim is something Henseleit is wary of when it comes to improving on the WTCS scene.
“I definitely need to get more consistent in the water and maybe improve my take out speed, not only over the first 50m but also on the first 200m. The swim is definitely the foundation to top results because any seconds you will have to make up on the bike will most likely slow you down on the run.”
On a positive note, he felt “like I made another step on the run this year and on a good day I have the speed to start fast and hold a good pace”.
Nevertheless, “to be competitive for the top-10 I think I have to improve my overall level again because the last meters are really important now for your position. I definitely don’t lack the speed for a good finish but I’m already on my physiological limit before the last kilometre so I don’t have any energy left for sprinting.”
After a tremendous 2023, then, Henseleit will be hoping for even more next year. The man without goals creates a man without limits and, even if it is hard to pinpoint exactly the highs Henseleit could reach, it is unlikely that he will stop at his current level.
Rather, to borrow from Mean Girls, when it comes to Henseleit the limit does not exist.
