James Cunnama’s star is rising
South African James Cunnama proved he could bike with a smashing go-ahead split at Alpe d’Huez and out-biking course record holder Marcel Zamora Perez at Embrunman. He proved he could run with two 2:43 marathon splits while winning Rev 3 Cedar Point and Ironman Florida. He also proved he had 70.3 speed with a race-best 2:03:49 bike at Ironman 70.3 Singapore this year and a race-best 1:12:56 run on a tough course at Austin 70.3 last year.
Under the guidance of legendary coach Brett Sutton, the 28-year-old, 4th year pro now with Team TBB has his sights set on his Kona debut this October and shared a few thoughts on his career before a 3rd place finish at Wildflower.
Slowtwitch: You’ve said 2010 was your breakthrough year. What was your best race of the year?
James Cunnama: It’s hard to say. I had four fantastic races at the end of the year. But the first half of the year was terrible. I pulled out of IM South Africa with a stomach bug. I had a bike crash my first week at training camp on Switzerland. At Challenge France, I had a flat tire which cost me the race. And just before Challenge Roth, I had another bike crash which wrote off my Cervelo P4. Then I had to pull out of IM Austria because I got sick.
ST: After all the crashes and illnesses, you also had a close call with getting chicked. You held off Chrissie Wellington by 26 seconds at Challenge Roth. But in your defense, you were just a week after pulling out of Ironman Austria with a flu bug.
James: [From his blog] Normally when you go 8:18, you don’t even see the top ladies. But on this day I had to fight hard just to finish ahead of her. It was a fantastic event. I will be back and next time I won’t be worrying about the ladies. Not because Chrissie will be slower, but I intend to be much faster.
ST: Whew. That might have been the biggest setback psychologically. When did things turn around?
James: Then I had four wins in a row. Alpe d’Huez in France was the first. It’s very much a famous race with a lot of history behind it, and it was a really special experience. Our Team TBB squad races it because it is near our training base in Leysin, Switzerland. So we spent two days riding to it. Then we did the race, and then spent two days riding home. The way we did it was more of a training event than anything else. Right in the middle of this bike tour, I did the race.
ST: That’s a tough test with a 2.2k swim, 115k bike which finishes with the famous Tour de France climb, and a 21k run. How did it go?
James: It went fantastically. I had a good bike and then I had a good run off of it and won by a substantial 8 minutes or something. It was one of those incredible events. It's a very French race and a lot of French guys point for it. I had a duel with Xavier le Floch, then I pulled away at the end of the bike. I got off a good six minutes ahead of those guys who are famed for their riding the mountains in the French Alps and I broke Massimo Cigana’s course record by 20 minutes. It was a very big positive for me.
ST: Next?
James: A few weeks after that I did the Embrunman Triathlon in France. It’s the longest, toughest Ironman-caliber race in the world. I got second there after a long duel with Marcel Zamora Perez. We spent the whole bike dueling each other back and forth. He’s won it a bunch of times and held the bike record. That bike is incredible — 5,000 meters of climbing in 188k. It’s massive, massive ride. So we dueled each other the whole way and blew the rest of the field apart. I pushed him and made up the 2:21 I’d lost to him on the swim and we started the run together. Then he pipped me by seven minutes on the run [2:53 to 3:00]. So it was a confidence booster.
ST: Then you had a month in the US where you went on a hot streak?
James: After that I came over to America for my first time racing in the Continental US. I did Kona in 2009, which was a bad day for me. [69th overall in 9:25:05 with a 5:02:10 bike and 3:20:13 run] So I came to the US in 2010 and did the Rev 3 Cedar Point full distance and won that in 8:14 or 8:15. In that race, I got out of the water a few minutes behind the leaders. Then I got a penalty in the first 5k, which I thought was a very dodgy call. The stupid USAT stagger rule. You can’t tell when you can get a penalty for being directly behind a guy when you are 100 meters back. I couldn’t even tell. So I got a penalty. Then Bjorn Andersson put miles and miles into everybody on the bike, including me. When I got off the bike he was a good 18 minutes ahead. I had nothing to lose, so I put my head down and I ended up running a 2:43 and blowing everyone away and winning the race. So it was my first win in the States.
ST: It seems like your strength is the longer, tougher races. What happened with the 70.3s?
James: Then I went to Austin 70.3. Again I rode behind the faster guys and only caught them the last 5 miles. But when I got off, Marko Albert was 6 minutes ahead. Once again I was thinking I had nothing to lose and threw down on the run. I ran 1:12 and caught him and won that race by 69 seconds. It was a very hard run course. Very nasty. So that was a good one.
ST: Then you entered Ironman Florida — your sixth Ironman-distance event of the year including Ironman South Africa (sick) Rev 3 Cedar Point (win), Ironman Austria (scratched), Challenge Roth (6th), and Embrunman (2nd).
James: Again there was drama. I was with the lead group the whole way and it was freezing cold. About 50 Fahrenheit at the start of the bike. I stayed with the group until Mile 80 when I got a puncture. I lost a good 4 and a half minutes to about 10 guys. So I put my head down and went again. I was picking someone off about every few miles. By Mile 17, there was only one guy ahead of me, Pedro Gomez. At mile 20 he turned to me and said: “Good game. It’s all yours.” I said, “If you say so.” I ran a 2:43[:08] there. Two 2:43s at two Ironman races last year and three wins in three races in the States.
ST: Most of the time, your weakest leg is the swim. But when you get penalties, the ride has to be overcome.
James: When things go well, like winning Alpe d’Huez, the ride is a strength. The swim is my weakness and when I start the bike well behind, it can put a lot of stress on the rest of my day. Often I am only 2 or 3 minutes behind after the swim, but it leaves me a lot of work to do on the bike alone. It takes a lot of steam out of you. The races I’ve won I managed to overcome that. Running is my strength. But when you have to bike that hard, you run out of legs by the end. So coach and I will reckon it out.
ST: How is famed coach Brett Sutton playing on your mind?
James: In a good way and a bad way. We both have very high expectations. That's why we work so well together. Winning Florida was fantastic. It was my first Ironman win and we are very happy about it. But it’s just a stepping stone on the road to the major goal. We can get excited about it and we can celebrate it. But after the day, we look at it with a critical eye and we go: ‘You won, which was great, and ran a 2:43, which is fantastic. But you should not have been so far back after the swim. You should have been able to hurt the guys more on the bike.’ That kind of thing. As far as our relationship, it’s very honest and very harsh. We have set goals and we he is very aware of them.
ST: Neither of you is a shrinking violet.
James: Exactly. That's why we work so well together. He tells me honestly. I was at Ironman South Africa a few weeks ago and came third, a podium finish at my own race. I was pretty happy with it. It was a very, very fast race. Marino [Vahoenacker – runner-up] and Raynard [Tissink – winner] went well. So for all that I was happy. But the first words out of my coach’s mouth were ‘You should have done this! You should have done that! We have a lot to work on. Let’s get back to work.’ So that’s what he’s there for. That's why we keep him around. That's why he is so good at what he does. We keep it honest.
ST: Other races this year?
James: At Singapore 70.3 I was second behind Kris Gemmell. Again it was a start of the season for me and he was peaking for this race. It was his debut at the 70.3 distance. So he came in there with fear. And when they come in with fear, they come in prepared. He did well in tough conditions. [Cunnama fell behind 3 minutes on the swim, then made that up on the bike, then Gemmell won the duel on the run] It was frustrating to come in 49 seconds behind him. But that's racing. At the end of the day, he was better than me and all credit to him.
ST: Where is your home?
James: I grew up in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. But I settled in Port Elizabeth, where they hold the Ironman. That is how I got into the sport. Actually I was running with a running group. I had never swum nor biked. Through my running group I volunteered at that first one in 2004. I had been studying Human Movement Science at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in Port Elizabeth and had been trying some longer running races after focusing on the middle distance track events. After that first year volunteering, I was more involved and became one of the main organizers. Then I decided: You know what? This is amazing. I’m going to do this. So soon thereafter I did my first short triathlon. A year later I did my first Ironman at Port Elizabeth. The rest is history.
ST: What is your dream scenario this year?
James: Kona is what we are aiming at this year. You have to be patient but at the same time, we are optimistic. I have the points, I am good in the heat at races like Singapore and other tropical races. The heat is never a problem for me. Obviously the main issue for me at Kona is the swim. It’s a non-wetsuit swim. It’s a tough field. And it is becoming more and more a pack race on the bike.
ST: It is important to find where to situate yourself on the swim start at Kona.
James: Obviously the idea is to get out of the water not so ruined you are in no shape to ride with the leaders the first 10 miles when they are trying to drop everyone.
ST: What led you to Wildflower this year?
James: I’m here for my sponsor Avia. This is their race. And I’ve heard great things about it since I started the sport. It’s a premier destination race – the whole scene – the music, the camping, the crowds. It’s just an amazing experience.
ST: How does it fit in with the strategy for this year?
James: I spoke to The Coach [Brett Sutton] about our plans – where we were going to go and what we were going to do. We wanted to come over to the States for the first month of the season and get in a few good races. The first race that jumped up was Wildflower. Well there you go. It fits in perfectly. We will go do that one and at the same time we will support our sponsors. And once we did that, everyone I talked to said that race will suit you down to the ground. So I hope it does suit me [he finished 3rd] and I hope I do enjoy it as much as they say.
ST: How much difference did starting with Team TBB make in your life?
James: I am very fortunate that I didn’t mess around much before I signed on with Team TBB.
ST: No bad habits.
James: I started triathlon in 2006 and did my first Ironman in 2007. And at end of 2008 I started with the team. So it was really 18 months of figuring out.
ST: Did you pass a test of sorts to get on Team TBB? Or did they just let you in?
James: It wasn’t automatic at all. The Bike Boutique [TBB] was opening a shop in South Africa and in the process they wanted a South African athlete and they started looking. The people they were bringing the shop to South African gave me Brett‘s email address and told me, ‘We have spoken to him and I think you should contact him and find out what it would take to get on the team.’ It was a bit daunting. This is Brett Sutton, the best coach in triathlon. I didn’t know much about triathlon but I knew who Brett Sutton was.
ST: What was your resume like when you contacted him?
James: My best result was 10th at Ironman South Africa. Which is nothing to write home about. I sent him an email and said ‘Hey I am interested in winning Ironman one day what will it take to get on the team?’ That was pretty much my entire thing and he sent me a message back, ‘It takes a lot to win an Ironman, let alone win Kona. But if you have what it takes I am in the Philippines the next few days. Come and see me.’ There I was — a poor student with no money whatsoever. I had a friend who helped me out and got me over there. I spent 3 weeks in the Philippines with Brett and the team. He must have been pretty happy. By the end of the three weeks, he offered me a contract for the next year. We connected instantly, pretty much from the first day. He knew what I was expecting and I knew what he was expecting. He is a strong personality and some people clash with him. But I never did. The result has been three years working with him and we are going from strength to strength.
ST: You were at Wildflower with Jodie Swallow as Team TBB teammate?
James: Jodie came to train with me in South Africa over the summer. Brett asked if I would host her in South Africa. We trained for a few months. She won Clearwater and after that we both went over to Thailand with the team and got closer and closer. So, now we are together — and I am a lucky man indeed!
