Vary the intensity, get strong and be careful of carbon shoes: 10 ways to train like World and Olympic champion Cassandre Beaugrand

We’re not all going to stand on the top of an Olympic podium, but there are still plenty of lessons to be learnt by triathletes looking to improve their own performance.

Gavin Smith coached French favourite Cassandre Beaugrand to Olympic gold and the world title.

Here, the high performance coach at Loughborough University shares ten pearls of wisdom for age-group triathletes. 

From varying intensities to strength training and saving energy in races, this gold-medal coach’s advice will benefit any level of athlete. 

01 Settle into a routine

Ingraining healthy habits through a regular training regime will help your progression. As well as providing consistency – easy to say, harder to achieve – it removes procrastination about what you’re doing and when. 

It’s not just the physical benefits, either. For example, our squad meets 15mins before every swim session for pre-swim mobility exercises, putting them in the right place mentally, too.

02 The right coach

It could be someone who gives you a detailed programme to follow each week or a mentor to help guide overarching decisions. 

Are you happy to have remote contact or should it be face-to-face? 

Different athletes also have different requirements at different stages of their career. 

03 Be realistic

In our sport you have to play the long game. For example, building aerobic capabilities doesn’t happen overnight, so manage your expectations and be prepared to be patient. 

Many of us come into triathlon with bucket-list goals but learn to love the process and you’ll stay in the sport for longer.

04 Mix up the intensities

I believe you need a bit of everything in training and although triathlon is an endurance sport, don’t ignore anything from long, slow aerobic training to almost flat-out sprints. 

For example, it might be 6 x 50m in the pool, with eight strokes hard at the start each time. Or an easy bike ride with 6 x 6sec sprints. 

With Cass, I’ll often give her 4 x 8sec hill sprints towards the end of an easy run.

A lot of age-groupers default to slow-mo mode and don’t develop the mechanics to go fast and that low ceiling can be inhibiting.

Find a way to include top-end work in a safe way. For example, it might be 4 x 20sec build strides, where you start at 80% and build to 90-95%.

05 Don’t neglect gym work

Our squad undertakes two gym sessions a week, with most exercises focused on injury prevention, but one or two on enhancing performance. 

Exercises should be tailored to your needs, but consider the functional movements you’ll need for your sport – often multi-directional, compound movements. 

We also like to be time-efficient, so in and out of the gym within 45mins, and we might combine it with an easy run there and back.

06 Earn free speed

We’re particularly talking about drafting. For Cass it’s been following the feet on the swim, because if we can save another 2% energy in the water, it could make the difference at the end of the 10km run. 

We’ve included pool sets where we’ve removed the lane ropes and asked Cass to stay in the middle of a group. 

The same can be done in open water, especially at pinch points around buoys.

It paid dividends in Paris because we knew she’d have to start in the centre of the pontoon due to the current. 

It’s not just the skill itself, but feeling comfortable with people swimming in close proximity, helping lower the heart rate and saving energy for what’s to come.

07 Understand the group

Training groups can help motivate you and give that social contact so many of us love about the sport, but knowing what you need from sessions is key. 

If 20 people are doing the same session, there might be 20 different aims, but it can be achieved. 

For example, you want to work on back-end strength, so run off the back for the group for the first few reps and build towards the front for the last few.

Alternatively, you might decide group sessions fulfil your social needs and you’ll reserve the specific physiological work for individual sessions.

08 Dial in your nutrition…

Working out what to eat 48-24hrs before a race was a key piece of the puzzle for Cass, especially on Paris race morning. 

When the nutritionist suggested pancakes to Cass for breakfast, she was grinning from ear to ear.

They are high in energy, her stomach could handle them and they weren’t so bland that she had to force them down when nervous. 

Whatever your preference, practise multiple times before race-day.

09 …and your in-race nutrition

While Cass will have a back-up gel for the run, almost all the in-race nutrition is focused on the bike leg for Olympic distance. 

It’s currently around 60-80g of carbs per hour, but always a work in progress. Hydrating adequately is something we’ve persistently focused on too. 

Depending on conditions, you might want more or less electrolytes, but if you haven’t got the right amount of fluid in, your body will shut down at some point.

10 Race-day kit

Practise with your race kit, but be wary of carbon shoes. 

You hear it time and again about being comfortable with your race-day kit, so practise, practise, practise. 

But don’t overtrain in carbon shoes because of the injury risk. 

We use them building into a race, but often only for 4-6km and towards the back-end of a session once or twice a week. 

You need to run in them enough because the foot strike is different, but if you use them for every session I believe it can lead to lower-limb issues. 

How Gavin Smith coached Beaugrand to Olympic gold … from Loughborough

After completing a sports coaching degree at Cardiff Met Uni, Gavin spent the next few years racing at an elite level around the world.

 He has been a high performance coach with Loughborough University since 2008.

Only once before in Olympic triathlon history had the home favourite delivered a gold medal. 

Most readers will recall Alistair Brownlee withstanding the pressure to take the top podium spot in London 2012. 

Now, 12 years on, here was Cassandre Beaugrand repeating the achievement for the French. 

From the stage to the performance, it was, in every respect magnifique. Although Beaugrand’s brilliance helped deny GB’s Beth Potter, there was at least a little British flavour to the tricolore triumph.

Two years earlier, the then 25-year-old Beaugrand had moved from her training group in the 

south of France to be coached by Gavin Smith at Loughborough University.

Already a world class performer but without the results to justify that talent, Beaugrand was looking for a change of stimulus. 

Her ability was undeniable, but there were question marks over her temperament. With Paris 2024 on the horizon – Beaugrand was born in Livry-Gargan, a northeastern suburb of the city – she needed a reboot. 

“We didn’t ever talk about winning gold,” Smith explains. “It was just a process to make Cassandre the best athlete we could.” 

It worked. Last year, the French ended as runner-up to world champion Potter. 

But by the time she had won World Series races in Cagliari in May and strode away from the field in Hamburg in July, it was clear who the in-form athlete was. 

“Her confidence was at a point where I’ve never seen it before,” Smith continues. 

“I thought this is going to happen and she’ll find a way to make it happen.”

A mini world-class system 

Smith started out as a triathlete studying sports coaching at Cardiff Met (then UWIC) at the turn of the millennium. 

He spent winters training with Tim Don in South Africa, but wasn’t making enough money for a viable pro career.

A job offer as a part-time performance coach at Loughborough University changed his direction. 

“It was a two-year contract and I thought after that I’ll know whether it’s the right path,” Smith says. 

He moved from London, threw himself into the role and has never left. 

That was September 2005, and today a partnership with British Triathlon means the operation doubles as a performance centre for the likes of Olympic champion Alex Yee and a development squad for university students.

“A mini world class system,” is how Smith describes it, although he may have to rethink the term ‘mini’ given the 20 or so staff he recalls at his initiation has now grown to around 160. 

Serving many sports, the team now consists of nutritionists, physiologists, psychologists, and strength and conditioning coaches. 

It’s a platform that’s helped Loughborough win the overall British Universities & Colleges Sports title for the past 43 years.

“It’s the foundation of everything,” Smith says. “If we lost that the whole thing would tumble down.” 

Loughborough-based athletes also won 16 medals in Paris. If  reclassified as a country, it would place them 16th in the medal table. 

So what is it that Smith loves about coaching? 

“The journey,” he explains. “Whether that’s taking an 18-year-old who has just come 

from home and finds triathlon or Cass, who was looking for something different to take her as far as she’s gone.”

The pursuit of excellence is a balance between cajoling and challenging athletes, but Smith says the latter takes care of itself. 

“With a squad as good as ours it happens organically.

If you’ve got Alex Yee over there and Cass here and that’s the world standard, it filters down without words being said.” 

At face value, Beaugrand’s decision to move from Montpellier in the south of France to an east Midlands market town might seem a strange one.

But love conquers all and boyfriend Hector Pardoe, a British open-water swimmer who placed sixth in the Olympics, is on a scholarship at the university.

Instigating change 

Smith says the choice also reflects an attitude of those at the highest level who aren’t frightened to instigate change. 

“Five degrees and driving rain isn’t what she’d necessarily choose,” he explains. 

“But Cass will put herself in challenging situations, something you see with the best athletes. 

“A lot of the very best haven’t just evolved from one environment.”

There was a problem, though. Beaugrand was “almost too good”. 

British Triathlon has allowed overseas athletes to its centres before. Richard Varga in Leeds is the best example. As the fastest swimmer in the sport he aided the Brownlee brothers. 

But never have they been a threat to British medals. Unlike Beaugrand.

It led to Beaugrand enrolling on a coaching course at Loughborough College and Smith ending his role as coach for Connor Bentley, the 2022 U23 world champion, because he could no longer be party to any information from the world-class programme. 

Before working with Beaugrand, Smith also canvassed opinion. 

“Many thought she didn’t work hard,” he explains.

“I don’t think she likes it, but she’ll work very hard including 4hrs in the rain on her own on the bike. 

“She’s stubborn and mentally tough.” 

There were also jibes about her bike handling, that she couldn’t deliver over Olympic distance, or that DNFs littered her race history. 

Creating a champion 

Beaugrand was no green teen coming to the sport fresh. Coached by her father, she is technically flawless on the swim and run. 

World Series success in Hamburg in 2018 brought her to the attention of many. But she’d won the French national sprint championships four years earlier and set national youth track records over 1,500m. 

“The mechanics had been built,” Smith says. “She’d been coached well. The question was, how could I help add mental and physical strength to sustain this technique for longer?”

The key was to build trust and make no mention of the P word. 

“She didn’t want to commit to Paris,” he continues. “At least not verbally. It was an attitude of: ‘If we can get there then fabulous, but ultimately my career is more than one race.’ 

“Pitching it as a Paris project would have been terrible.”

Instead, the focus has been the focus: 40km time trials on the bike holding fixed heart rates and power; sustained efforts over longer run reps. 

Building the base, but also the mental fortitude.

If Beaugrand would previously drift towards the back of a cycle pack, now she was concentrating on working towards the front and holding her position. 

No longer would she forget to hydrate on the bike, a reason Smith believes victories have started to come.

And, of course, the bike handling, which she passed with flying colours upon the mix of cobbles and newly laid tar on the slick streets of Paris. 

“We do it weekly, if not twice weekly. 

“Cones and circuits, you might call it the foundation basics of how to handle a bike,” Smith says. 

“It’s one she’s bought into.”

The expectations of a nation

Heading to Paris the expectations were unavoidable. 

“About a year ago we discussed needing a plan,” says Smith.

“When to see friends and family. Being prepared for people saying you’re the favourite. 

“She had to come up with the solutions, which I think she did.”

Finally, there was the speculation as to the water quality and current in the Seine. 

“Our sport is so variable that you have to almost expect change,” Smith says. 

“Whether that’s transition check-in time or being unable to get in the water to warm up, or the conditions on the day.”

It’s partly why Beaugrand was sent to the British Universities and Colleges Sport (BUCS) championship in May. A 400m swim, 22km bike and a 5km run at Westonbirt House in the Cotswolds. 

“As much of a challenge as possible in different scenarios,” Smith says. 

“I don’t think we’ve ever had a British universities’ champion become Olympic champion in the same year, but it shows what our sport is about. 

“Not just: ‘Here’s my level and I’m not racing anything and I’m not racing anything 

else.’

“It’s about finding the right challenge at the right time.”