BEYOND THE LINE

BEYOND THE LINE

Armed with two decades of experience as a banker and racing ultra challenges, Olivier has developed a coaching style that perfectly fits the lifestyle constraints of the busy executive. In a nutshell, he knows what his athletes are going through, juggling with a demanding job, a family, and their endurance quest, as he was just like them.

Olivier chose ‘Beyond The Line’ as the name for his coaching company because he aims at not only helping his athletes reach the finish line but also ingraining in them a lifestyle that remains far after the race is complete. Olivier also believes that the journey is as important, if not more, than the destination. As a result, he helps the athletes get a broader vision of their training, and when they are open to it, of their life.

Olivier’s training philosophy has expanded and keeps evolving, but there are constant pillars, such as:

• aerobic foundation build-up

• polarised training intensities

• scientific periodisation

• year-round strength training

• inclusion of nutrition and mind training

• mix of technology, data, and intuition

• participative coaching style

Olivier regularly includes new practices into his coaching palette. As a result, Beyond The Line is a conduit for a growing number of endurance coaching services, as new programmes are constantly added to the list.

In summary, Olivier’s ultimate goal, beyond helping his athletes reach their objective, is to make sure that they remain fit and active all their life, avoiding burnout and injury, while enjoying the transformational process fully.

OLIVIER BAILLET

Founder, Director, and Head Coach of  BEYOND THE LINE 

Olivier Baillet spent almost 20 years as an international banker in Frankfurt, Buenos Aires, NYC, Paris, Hong Kong, and Singapore, mostly in risk management positions. All these years, he was living a ‘parallel life’ as a competitive distance athlete. In 2014, aged 43, Olivier completed a specialisation module in Sport Management as part of an Executive MBA programme. He then launched BEYOND THE LINE out of Hong Kong and became a full-time coach.

As an athlete, Olivier was well known in the Hong Kong sports community for having completed the Ironman Triathlon World Championship 4 times over a span of 17 years, for climbing the equivalent of Mt Everest altitude on a bike -climbing 10 times the steepest hill in Hong Kong- and more recently for introducing the Swedish sport of Swimrun locally and developing indoor riding group workouts on the Zwift platform. The achievement that brought him most media coverage, though, remains his 75km swim around Lantau island .

I wasn’t a super athletic as a kid, though, and had no special gift. The most I did was swimming twice a week, playing a bit of tennis, and riding my BMX. My sports abilities only started to take shape in my late twenties, when I started venturing into swim challenges. I then dabbled with a distance running, doing my first marathon on no training, and then used my run fitness to climb Aconcagua summit. I bought my first road bike just before my 30th birthday.

From there, everything changed, and it all moved very quickly. I bought Joe Friel’s ‘Triathlon Training Bible’ in late 2000, created my first training plan and started training for my first Ironman triathlon race on the First of January 2001. Seven months after, I qualified for the Ironman World Championship by clocking 9 hours and 51 minutes on a notoriously unforgiving course (Lake Placid). After that, I started to get requests from athletes about my ‘secrets’. It took me more than a decade to evolve from ‘the nice guy happy to share’ to professional coaching.

What separates Olivier from most other coaches is his mindset and attitude. Rarely do you come across someone who is as curious and willing to question themselves by learning new expertise in fields that are so diversified, for the love of experimenting with new things and the will to implement new techniques that could benefit his athletes.

You can check Olivier’s Qualification here