LESSONS FROM THE EDGE

The Time Triallist

1 ROHAN DENNIS

Team Ineos rider Rohan Dennis is accustomed to pain and pressure. He set a leg-flaming UCI hour world record of 52.491km in 2015, and earned back-to-back world time-trial titles in 2018 and 2019. But the 30-year-old Australian has learnt to order his thoughts in difficult situations to ensure he focuses on what matters.

“Never look at the big picture or it gets too much,” explains Dennis. “Imagine if in Yorkshire (at the 2019 World Champs) I was thinking, ‘Okay, first kilometre all good, but I’ve got 53km to go until I finish.’ I would never have won. So I broke it down into chunks. I go, ‘Okay, this is the flat section.’ Then I move onto the next section. You can’t stick the whole doughnut in your mouth at once or you’ll choke. Bite one bit off at a time.”

Confidence is derived from knowing we have the ability to positively influence a situation. So focusing on the immediate processes of a task, instead of the potential consequences,