Alex Yee’s FTP and his Coros DURA Olympic Data

Alex Yee won a gold medal in the triathlon at the Paris 2024 Olympics (highlights) and was caught using one of the new Coros DURA bike computers during the race’s second leg.

Coros has been kind enough to share the race data with us in this article. And, of course, boost their association with the gold medalist. Fair enough, it’d be rude not to!

However, I’m not sure the data is correct or perhaps my reasoning is failing me. Here are some of my thoughts and your comments are welcome to try to explain what I can’t.

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Alex’s Power Zone durations during the Olympic race

This is Alex’s race data expressed in his power zones.

I wanted the high speed so it would be hard to be caught. It was very similar to what I trained for, so I felt comfortable putting in the effort.” As can be seen above, Alex’s power numbers and speed were nearly identical to his tune up session early in the summer. Averaging 282 watts and 46.26 km/h, this was exactly how Alex had trained.

Upon being caught from the pack behind, Alex decided to sit back in the group to conserve energy. “Once we were caught, we eased up on the pace. I wanted to conserve some of my energy for later.” Even with easing up, Alex still hit over 600 watts on 41 different occasions throughout the ride. Again, his team had prepared for the exact demands he found in Paris. During the final 13.5km, Alex averaged 197 watts and 43.67 km/h. This final stretch allowed him to find more time in Zone 1 and recover, heading into the run.

 

Coming off the bike in 16th place, Alex had work to do in the final leg of the race. [Coros]

Bear in mind that this is a drafting race, so cycling power efforts can be polarised. That aspect of the data is OK. I had an issue with his FTP.

I used the Coros app to replicate the FTP used in Yee’s zone breakdown above. I couldn’t get the automatic calculation to work, but to align the upper end of Zone 4 I had to use an FTP of 274watts.

Just a quick heads up here that many (most?) endurance tech reviewers had an FTP higher than that at some point in their glorious tri histories, me included! I don’t think any of us profess to be Olympic athletes, nor did we ever match Yee’s race weight. At 5′ 10″, he is variously reported to weigh between 55kg and 60kg, giving a w/kg range of 4.9w/kg to 4.5w/kg.

With an FTP of 274w he would have spent more than 21 minutes above FTP. 20 minutes at FTP should be exhausting at the best of times, OK it is the Olympics, but to push 12 minutes in zone 6 is even more impressive.

Thoughts?

So what do you think? Are the FTP and zones shown in the article correct? I suspect not.

The article also shows his accumulated load and tapering leading up to the race. If the FTP and zones are wrong, this data could also be wrong; maybe it’s based on a different set of heart rate data.

Coros uses subtly different metrics that I’d perhaps not choose myself (CTL/ATL/TSB), but this data seems to show a good (obviously) build-up. Interestingly, this should convince novice athletes of the need to taper well before race day.