That Triathlon Show: Joel Filliol, Coach of Seven World Championship Titles: You Need Less Intensity Than You Think

29 Oct

Episode: Joel Filliol, Coach of Seven World Championship Titles: You Need Less Intensity Than You Think

Published: 29 October 2026, with Mikael Eriksson

I joined Mikael Eriksson on That Triathlon Show to talk through Vasco Vilaça's world title, the seventh across four athletes in our squad.

The question I get most is what changed. The honest answer is not much.

The principles are the same: consistent progression, the right work at the right time. The weekly templates are largely unchanged over ten years. We still do many of the exact same sessions. Vasco's winter before his first WTCS win was a slight progression on what he was already doing, with better recovery and better absorption of the work.

What has changed is the environment around athletes. More data, more noise, more people sharing everything they do. Protecting attention and focus is harder now than it was in Mario Mola's era.

We also get into Vasco's training week, how little time is spent above threshold, why progressive sessions work, how the same principles apply to age-groupers on 10–15 hours a week, and the road to LA.

Chapters (from the show notes)

01:40 Seven world titles: what has and hasn't changed

08:24 Training in a smaller squad

16:55 Iteration, not innovation

23:16 The minimal effective dose and a flat structure

27:29 Vasco's training week

36:20 Progressive sessions

42:16 Progressing and pacing the 16 x 400

48:58 Mega sessions and trusting the process

54:33 Age groupers: build the engine first

59:03 How easy should easy be?

1:03:25 Swimming rules for age groupers