How the Jan Frodeno connection helped US triathlon phenom Taylor Knibb and coaching great Dan Lorang link up ahead of Paris 2024
Taylor Knibb will bid for Olympic glory in both triathlon and the road cycling time trial next month in Paris â and she has the perfect coach to help her prepare for the audacious bid.
Thatâs Dan Lorang, who guided Lucy Charles-Barclay to a long-awaited IRONMAN World Championship victory last year â and who has also had enduring coaching partnerships with 2019 IMWC winner Anne Haug and the legendary Jan Frodeno.
Remarkably, Lorangâs main job is actually Head of Performance / Head Coach of the Bora-hansgrohe professional cycling team, which later this week will start their bid for Tour de France glory with PrimoĆŸ RogliÄ.
But in Knibb, Charles-Barclay and Haug, he oversees the coaching of three of the top four women in the PTO world rankings.
âWe saw it could workâ
So how did the partnership with the American phenom, who is #1 in the standings and has won her last six middle-distance races, including two 70.3 World Championships, come about?
When we caught up with Dan to find out more it turns out there was a link with none other than Frodeno.
Lorang explained: âThere was a first contact with Lawrence Van Lingen, who is working on her running technique and biomechanics. And he worked together with Jan Frodeno. So thatâs where was the first touching point was last year during the World Championship in Nice, when Lawrence told me that Taylor would be interested in talking to me about the future.
âI obviously knew Jan would be ending his career after that Nice race so there would be one spot available for an athlete.
âBut I said, I donât want any rumours to come up before so letâs wait until she races [her first] Kona and then weâll talk after that. And thatâs what we did. So I had a good chat with Taylor after Kona, and I listened to her goals, where she wants to go, what she needed. And then we said, okay, letâs give it a try until Christmas and see that it can work.
We said that during that period, I would also talk to Anne [Haug] and Lucy [Charles-Barclay] about it and how they see it and basically the final outcome was they were okay with it.
âAnd Taylor and myself, we saw it could work. We have a nice team together with Lawrence, Julie Dibens as a swim coach and Erin Carson as her strength and conditioning coach. So itâs basically a team around Taylor that sheâs created. That was the starting point and itâs obviously going very well.â
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âAn interesting projectâ
Given Knibbâs dual focus on triathlon and cycling â she won this yearâs US National Time Trial Championship to qualify for Paris â it would seem that Lorang is perfectly positioned to be her coach.
He told us: âSo on paper it looked like it could really fit together. But, you know, itâs always about people. And also about these special situations.
âI didnât know Taylor at all. I hadnât met her apart from on video call, and I wasnât on the ground with her so I was not sure if this kind of coaching could really work for her because she was used to going to a training group and having people around.
âAnd I think that one big point why itâs working is we have that group of people around her and we built this whole working together also on trust, so we were really open to each other from the first moment on. And until now, it works pretty well, I have to say.
âAnd for sure she had that interesting project with trying to go to the Olympics in two disciplines. And that is quite something also for a coach.
Taylor Knibb finished second in Yokohama before winning the US TT nationals [Photo credit â Tommy Zaferes]
âAnd yeah, we have had some good race results for sure. We are doing some âlittle bit crazyâ things â like after WTCS Yokohama, going straight to the nationals [cycling time trial] which also for me was something new to combine the two. And thatâs why we said itâs always a project, itâs never a guarantee. So youâre doing it together as a project, you know the risks, you know the pros and cons, and then you work together towards this goal and you must enjoy it.â
âIt was a little bit the same when I started to work together with Lucy. Because the main goal was to try to also qualify for the Olympics and combine it with long distance triathlon. We didnât made it because of some injuries but that was the initial aim.
âAnd with Taylor here it was the same â she had a project in mind and was really committed to it.â
And Dan also revealed that his wife knew straight away from that first call with Knibb that this could be another very special coaching partnership.
He revealed: âI remember when I had the first chat on a video call with Taylor, my wife just walked past the room and listened to it for a minute. And after the call she just said, âyeah, thatâs one for youâ.
âAnd I said, okay, probably itâs a good fit. From the mental side, from the physical side, but also from the ambition side weâve matched quite good together so far.â
Coach Dan Lorang (Photo credit: BORA â hansgrohe / Veloimages)
