Pursuing Olympic Glory

I had the absolute pleasure of interviewing the current Men’s Triathlon World Champion and Aussie all-round legend, Matt Hauser. I’ve been a long time fan of Matt’s, who’s had an brilliant career journey to date. Thank you to Asics and The Athlete’s Foot for this epic opportunity, as we celebrated the launch of the Superblast 3. Enjoy the transcript.

Felix: So right from Junior World Champion in 2017, all the way to World Triathlon Championship Gold and Wollongong in 2025, it’s clear that you’ve maintained a ridiculous level throughout your career. So what’s the secret sauce to maintaining that level?

Matt: It’s funny, it hasn’t really felt like the same level the whole time. It’s kind of just been ebbing and flowing. I think obviously being a talented junior at a young age, I was, I was given a lot of opportunity perfect my craft. And I think it was just all about learning and maturing, not only as an athlete, but as a person throughout that journey, and I had a lot of injuries and setbacks through that time. So seven, eight years, it does seem like it’s been a long time coming. It’s just been good to bring the people around me and nice to look back on the journey now and to see how far I’ve come, to try and look forward to hopefully creating some more history for Australian triathlon.

Felix: Yeah, the belief required to navigate those periods must have been crazy, so congratulations! So now that you’ve claimed one of the ultimate prizes in triathlon, what’s continuing to motivate you to get out of bed on a morning, to go and train?

Matt: Yeah, coming down from that big high, I’ve obviously got a lot of expectation and a bit of a target on my back now. So, to be able to motivate myself to get back to those levels is gonna be tough, I can recognise that there’s definitely mental scarring when you go to places like that and you dig deep.

For me, I’m very much motivated by the Olympic Games. It’s got a rich history in our sport and no Australian male has medaled in the triathlon over six or seven iterations of the Olympics there. So it’s all about trying to get success in LA and, that World Championship was a nice mark along that journey, but now it’s all about being consistent - consistently podium, consistently trying to win - and make sure when the time comes, in LA in 2028, that it’s not like a breakthrough but more like a rite of passage. It’s gonna be earned through that three, four years prior. So yeah, that’s very much my goal at the moment. Then on to Brisbane 2032. I think that’s just super motivating to try and stick around for a home Olympics. I’ll be 34 so I won’t be as spring chicken - it’d be good to try and elongate the career for that as well.

Felix: Well, whether you medal at the Olympics or not, I hope you know you’ve done Australia very proud. We’re here to celebrate Asics and a key message of theirs is the ‘Sound mind, Sound body’, so what do you do on a day to day to nourish your mind?

Matt: My Fiancé and I have been I dating for five and a half, six years now, [Congrats!]

Appreciate that. Got the job done, she said yes! But she’s not in the triathlon circle as well, so it’s really nice to have that kind of escape from sport. She still runs and gets out and active, so it’s nice to go on easy runs and, and just chat general life stuff with her. Then we take our dog out Maple. She’s one half year old Wissler. She’s beautiful; we just live around from the dog park, so we are literally out most mornings, most afternoons. With an active dog, you gotta get out out the door. But it’s nice to get out the door and, and not have a purpose behind it. Just to go freely and, experience the afternoon and what it has to offer instead of having key sessions or targets to hit. Just little things to do outside of the sport to keep you engaged.

Felix: Yeah. Lovely. I’m gonna get onto my Fiancé after this about a Wissler, and plant a seed there. Great dog. Also, do you read, and if so, are you currently reading? If not, podcasts? YouTube channels? What are you consuming?

Matt: I’m consuming YouTube at the moment because I’m really trying to get into that space. Yeah, we just launched a YouTube channel a month ago. Me and my videographer, Nick, he’s here today and he’s very over qualified to be working with me, but it’s been a cool, experimental journey getting into the YouTube game. So it’s been very exciting. So just trying to consume other YouTube content and just learn what to best do and what everyone’s kind of after. Social media does take up a lot of time. It’s a necessary evil of the sport and as triathletes, you don’t get a multimillion dollar contract like footballers.

So, I think for us it’s part of it and you’ve gotta kind of sell yourself at the same time. I’m reading a few books at the moment and Jimmy Page’s autobiography, the Led Zeppelin lead guitarist, so that’s been cool. I need to get more into reading, it’s one of those things where it’s always a nice thing to get into, but whether or not you are super motivated to do it is another thing. Everything’s so quickly consumable nowadays but yeah, trying to get more into that space.

Felix: For sure. Yeah. Well, I’ve, I’ve got a scatterbrain, and it works for me, which is why I ask. With the mental load that you must go through with the sport, it’s really interesting to know what you do to decompress. Anyhow, today we are wearing the Asics Superblast 3, but I wanted to ask what is the shoe that you are putting on more than any other shoe?

Matt: Honestly, Superblast 2. That was a shoe that I was always wearing. Even to the point where I’d do really fast sessions in them, even track workouts in the super blast two, just ‘cause I really loved how firm they were and how responsive they were as well. I think with the super blast 3 coming in at more of a softer point as well, it’d be good to expose that to longer runs, easier runs as well. Then obviously including the Megablast as well. I’m growing to love that shoe and move it into the threshold, tempo kind of workouts as well. Also, Nimbus 28, kind of similar to, to what Izzi (Batt-Doyle) is using in a similar kind of shoe rotation. So, yeah, something for everyone.

Felix: Last question! We’re only a year apart. I had to go straight to long course ‘cause I wasn’t fast enough to do short. We’re both on the way to 30, though. So when are you coming across the long course?

Matt: This is a question I get asked far too often, all the time! I was planning on doing the T100 in March, but it’s female only. So I think we’ll, probably park it for now. Yeah, we might do something in the back end of the year. Noosa, when I get my TT vibes going again after world championships. But very much locked into LA at the moment. After that, towards Brisbane, I might flirt with a few other bits and pieces. I mean, the T100 might find its way into the Olympics as well, so you never know. They’re trying to push for Brisbane 2032, so that would be unreal.

I really do love it (long course). It’s such a different sport ultimately with a TT bike. It adds another completely different element, but it requires a lot of work and time on the bike, positioning, and stuff like that. So to do the distance justice, I really need to focus in on doing that full time. So there’s bits and pieces for me.

Felix: So you wouldn’t do the Olympic distance into the T100 at the Olympics?

Matt: That would be tough. That would be very tough! We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it for sure. I’m very much like the quality over quantity type guy, so I don’t bite off more than I can chew. Someone like Hayden (Wilde) probably does but for me, just to specialise in one area and be okay at that is good enough for me.

Felix: Alright mate, I’m gonna let you go!

Self reflection

Matt seems like a lovely guy; very accomodating, keen to chat, and open to sharing too! With triathlon, the talk can easily goes to numbers, data, outcomes, some of which we spoke through. What I enjoyed most, though, was getting a taste for the human behind some of these incredible achievements. We are all human; fallible, subject to self-doubt, never indestructible, often under immense pressure, and in need of the support of others!

So, seeing that even Matt needs his time away from the sport, regularly leans back into his sense of home and family, and thinks about his creative output are findings that humanise him, even to a shameful fanboy like myself. I’m fascinated by the psychology of our deepest motivations, and what we can achieve by leaning back into them. I cannot imagine, though, winning a world championship before saying to myself; ‘right we need to do that again but even better, and in three years time...’. The belief to have another crack as well as the fortitude to get back to work are both very inspiring. Let’s all get behind this man!