Meet the Populous teams with designs on City PM Triathlon Team Challenge
They’re the brains behind the backdrops to some of sport’s greatest moments and now the staff of leading stadium architects Populous are plotting their own athletic glory in the City PM Triathlon Team Challenge at the London T100.
Two teams from the world-renowned practice behind Wembley, Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and the Emirates – one from its EMEA HQ in Putney and another from its Shoreditch-based audio-visual arm Experience Studios – have signed up to the corporate sprint relay, part of a weekend of elite and amateur triathlon races on 9-10 August.
They will be going up against top City firms and other teams from the world of finance, including regulator the FCA, although the primary focus for the Populous squads will be on claiming the inter-company bragging rights.
“We should be able to take them down,” jokes Experience Studios director and co-founder Kevin Luckhurst. “We’re going to be studying our rivals and their weaknesses over the coming weeks to see what leg we think we can take them on.”
Luckhurst, a keen open-water swimmer, is taking the first leg of the relay, a 750m splash that precedes a 20km bike ride and 5km run. He is using his first triathlon since becoming a dad to rekindle his competitive flame.
“I haven’t done one since 2018 and then having kids, so I’ve been meaning to sign up to some kind of challenge this year,” he says.
“I have been in the pool twice a week, but it’s obviously different when you do it in a wetsuit and in open water. I do a bit of that anyway – when I get the opportunity to swim in the sea, I do that down in Whitstable. It’s something I love.”
Populous HQ’s secret weapon: an elite athlete
Colleague Alicia Waibel, a designer at Experience Studios, has a couple of sprint triathlons in her native Bavaria under her belt and has volunteered to take the bike section, despite it being her least practised leg.
“I did a couple of run and swim events this year but actually I thought I’ll challenge myself and do the cycling part this year instead,” she says. “So I’m excited to find some cool bike routes around London.”
Says Luckhurst: “I really enjoy the training part of it, getting out exploring and using it as a bit of an adventure. Some people will just pick a track and then run around it 20 times but I’m all about trying to find how many different parks I could go to in a run, or doing a different cycle route every time, or going to a different beach to do a sea swim.”
Agrees Waibel: “That’s actually what I also really like, that you have three different disciplines and every day you can train a different discipline, which is fun.”
Acoustic designer Harry Coles is taking the anchor leg, appropriately enough given that he was the man responsible for encouraging his colleagues to take the City PM Triathlon Team Challenge.
“Harry dropped us an email to our group chat, saying ‘who’s up for it?’, and then within a few minutes, we had a small team,” says Luckhurst, who worked on the London Stadium.
“This is the first team athletic outing we’ve done. We do the usual socials and meals out and pubs and bowling and all that sort of stuff, but this is a really nice, different way to get together and kind of achieve something as a group.”
Standing between the Experience Studios trio and internal bragging rights, however, is the Populous team’s secret weapon: Kelly Drenth, who was part of the national rowing programme back home in Australia.
“I’m a lacrosse player and I did a lot of sports since I grew up. But yeah, I can’t compete with the rowing national champion,” says Alicia.
Concludes Kevin: “Harry’s doing the run. I’ve not seen him in action, but I hear he’s a pretty sprightly runner, so I think he’ll be able to clean up the last section with some speed.”
The battle lines, like the architectural masterplans, are drawn.