Date of birth: 12 February 1971

Place of birth: Cape Town, South Africa

Nationality: British

Height: 1,92 m

Weight: 75 kg

Status: Married to Lisa with a daughter named
Amélie

Professional since: 1989

Best performances: 5 times World Champion,
3 times European Champion

Training hours/week: Swim 5-6 hours
Bike: 10-12 hours
Run: 4-6 hours

Favored leg: Run and Swim

Best time for 10 km run: 29 min

Bike: Cannondale

Major sponsors: Mavic, Cannondale, Giro, Oakley, Aquaman,

Hobbies: Outdoor activities

Favorite food: Italian

SIMON LESSING
United Kingdom

Sport: Triathlon
Birth date: February 12, 1971
Birthplace: Cape Town, South Africa
Residence: Boulder,Colorado
Height: 6-foot-3 1/2
Weight: 167 lbs.

Three-sport discipline
There aren't many people who can swim a 16-minute 1500 meters, ride 40 kilometers in close to 50 minutes, or run a 29-minute 10K. And there certainly are fewer that can do all three consecutively. Five-time World Triathlon champion Simon Lessing is one of the best there is.
Growing up in Cape Town, South Africa, Lessing has taken advantage of his dual citizenship. He left South Africa at the age of 18 and moved to Europe to race for Great Britain while South Africa was banned from international competition due to its apartheid policies. He has raced for Great Britain for more than 10 years.
Discipline and conviction have marked Lessing's career, a career that has led him to five world championships, three European championships, and a reputation has a fierce competitor.

Origins in sports
Simon grew up in Cape Town, and later Durban, South Africa. His mother was a swimming coach who got him into competitive sports early.
He praises his parents for letting him pursue his dream and their foresight to see he could go on to great things.
By the end of his fifth year in school as a youngster, he'd won provincial colors in swimming, sailing and biathlon, and had made his name as a cross-country runner.
A swimming coach named Dave MacCarney suggested to Lessing, at age 14, that he give the triathlon a try. By age 16, it had become his main focus. At 17, he won his first title, the National Spring Championships.
At age 18, Simon became the South Africa triathlon champion.

Acitivism
Because of his mother's heritage, he was able to compete for Great Britain, a critical opportunity because of South Africa's apartheid practices. Lessing had been an active opponent of apartheid. At one point, he and a friend removed all the duplicate books from the storeroom of their school's library and gave them to a nearby black school that had no library.
Simon also recalls pulling out of one of his country's most prestigious scholastic athletics meet because a black student from a private school was not allowed to participate.
South Africa returned to the Olympics after a 32-year absence, to compete in the 1992 Barcelona Games.

Important People/Places/Things
Simon grew up in the shadow of Cape Town's famed Table Mountain, in a city that resides between two oceans, the Atlantic and the Indian.
Simon now lives in Boulder, Colorado
He is married to Lisa Laiti, who is a massage therapist.
He's been a professional triathlete since 1989.
Lessing has won five of the 10 World Championships held in the 1990s (1992, 1995, 1996 and 1998). At the '99 Worlds, he was in position to defend his title, leading the final stage - the run - with less than 1 kilometer to go. But Kazakhstan's Dmitry Gaag out-sprinted Lessing, winning the race by 6 seconds.
He's finished in the top seven nine times for the World Championships.

Favorites (books, music, movies, etc.)
Lessing's favorite TV shows are Friends, Seinfeld, Discovery Channel, History Channel, The Ali G Show and occasionally South Park, where he names Kenny as his favourite character: "Who's everybody's favourite?" he asks.
His favorite food is Italian.
Lessing's hobbies include other kinds of outdoor activities, like sailing and hiking.

Interesting Experiences
In 1995 at the Escape from Alcatraz triathlon in San Francisco, Calif., he fell off his bike and suffered a huge gash down his hip and leg. He still won the event.

On the Job
Lessing trains by doing five or six hours in the pool, 10 to 12 hours on the bike, and four to six run sessions a week. Additionally he'll do one or two track workouts and two or three hard bike sessions.
Simon has already made a trial run of the Sydney Triathlon course and says, "It suits me".
As for diet, Lessing says, "I don't go mad with McDonald's and I do try to eat balanced meals with a lot of pasta and rice, but I'm not obsessed with what I eat."