Terenzo Bozzone running form analysis

Terenzo Bozzone graced the Australian shores for a rare race appearance at the Shepparton IM 70.3 race, and showed the class act he is in swim, bike and run with a convincing victory over a quality field of Australian contenders. Bozzone has real pedigree, evidenced by multiple IM 70.3 victories in USA and around the world, including a World Championship title a few years back. His progress came to a halt 12 months ago, however, undergoing Achilles surgery...and having had 3 Achilles operations myself can say that his comeback has been fantastic, seemingly reaching top form late in the US season.

If he does have an “Achilles heel”, so to speak, it is in IM races where he hasn’t quite put together a race that reflects his capabilities over IM 70.3 distance. Often it has been in the run leg where the IM race has got away from him, a leg where he is arguably at his best over the half distance. There could be all range of reasons for this fade, but regardless, I took some good footage of him running at Shepparton which provides great material for analysis of his running form...and believe me, he was going very fast in the first 2 (of 3) run laps, eventually running 1:12 on an accurate course.

This video was taken at the start of the 3rd lap, so at the 14km+ mark, with a clear and safe lead. The following are some comments / observations of what I see, using my experience in running form analysis:

• He is very smooth, with little vertical movement.
• His arm swing is compact and relaxed.
• His core stability is strong, with little non-linear movement or body rotation.
• Further to that point, his hip stability is also very good, with minimal hip drop upon landing. However, he does twist his hips a little.
• He torso is nicely vertical...although I’ll touch on this again in a moment.
• He is mid/flat-foot runner, and to see him in real-time speed, is quite light on his feet.

So those are all the good things about his form. Now to be really harsh and picky, there’s a couple things I’d point out that might be coming back to bite him in an IM run leg:

• His foot landing is a little in front of him, meaning he is “behind” his stride rather than on top of it...this would really noticeable if you put him alongside the likes of Cam Brown, Crowie, etc. Refer to my article post IM Melbourne analysing the run form of the top-10 men.
• In conjunction with this, his hips are slightly back and “in a bucket” to a minor extent. The effect of these two things is that when he fatigues this will be exaggerated and he’ll sit back even more rather than being forwards and on top of his stride, which is momentum that is critical to maintaining form and speed in the depths of fatigue such as in an IM.
• Also, his slight hip twist would become more pronounced.

What I’m talking about is very subtle, but at that level it’s things like this that make the difference, even to a Formula 1 engine like Bozzone.

So what would I do if I was his coach...work on getting his weight over his stride via combination of drills, run form practice and incorporating it into his default form. The effect would be to introduce an ever so slight forwards lean, from the ankles (rather than from hips) and he would roll along, over the ground using momentum to his benefit.

Terenzo Bozzone is a world class athlete, proven by results over recent years, in particular IM 70.3 format, and he obviously has the calibre to compete over IM...but has not quite cracked it so far. Perhaps a little tweak to his running form might help in that quest, to see him compete with the best guys over IM. These were just my thoughts on that aspect...I wish him all the best.