Laurent CHOPIN
Laurent Chopin, Team Manager for Beauvais Triathlon, 2006: Winner of the French Cup, French Women's Club Champions, second in French Men's Club championship.
I have been Team Manager for Beauvais Triathlon since 1998. Our target in 2007 is to win the French team championship title as well as the French Cup. Based on our first results, it's quite achievable, particularly as in our teams we have half the French Olympic squad for 2008.
Nutrition for a triathlete is one of the major factors in performance. It's important to use well designed products, to have a clear mind in competition and to know that you have the necessary nutritional intake to be at your best.
Of course you also have to be perfectly hydrated, drinking before you feel thirsty to avoid bad results. The Hydrate & Perform drink has the right proportions, we feel safe with it. I would add that it's important to have several flavours, because after 6 hours of intense effort, you don't want to drink something that you don't like! The 4 classic flavours presented in the Hydrate & Perform range are perfect for pleasing everybody (in the team, "fresh" is the favourite flavour).
The team really like the Isostar chocolate "Long Energy Cake". It enables us to relax because it gives us everything we need before the start. When they travel to competitions, the athletes always take an energy Cake that they made in advance, some even freeze them. What's more, it has a very good chocolate taste, much easier to swallow at 6 o'clock in the morning than a plate of pasta or rice!
My advice: test products during training to optimise your performance in competition. In the same way, you never test new shoes during a marathon! For example, energy gels, THE essential thing in competition. Depending on the sequence of training sessions, athletes calculate in advance how much Energy Gel they will carry with them and after how many kilometres they will take them (for some this can mean as many as 10 doses in long distance triathlons!).
The quality contract charter: it's very good, personally I don't think Isostar publicises it enough! But everyone knows that when you have been a well known brand in the market for so long, you are inevitably beyond reproach.