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In the last year alone he's won the U.S. national championships in Hawaii, the famous Escape from Alcatraz triathlon in San Francisco and the California Ironman. Now Andy Potts, the world number three, is coming to conquer Bermuda.

Potts, who ran his first triathlon in 2002 and was competing for the U.S. at the Athens Olympics two years later, is the big name in a star studded field for next weekend's inaugural Escape to Bermuda triathlon.

He talked to James Whittaker about his meteoric rise, drawing inspiration from his wife Lisa and her battle with Cancer and offered some training tips to Bermuda's own triathlon contingent....

Are you looking forward to the Escape to Bermuda triathlon?

I'm really looking forward to it. Last year my wife travelled to a whole bunch of races with me.

We now have a five month old son and she's only been able to go to one overseas race this year, so as well as the race this should give her some well deserved beach time.

I don't do much the few days before a race so I'll be able to handle babysitting duty.

It definitely helps me to have them here. Lisa provides a sense of calm for me and allows me to get on with what I do best and race.

I always want my son to be proud of me so it's a little added incentive that he's there, not that I need that.

You visited the island earlier this year, do you think that could give you an advantage over your competitors?

I was here to do a talk with the BTA in February. I stayed with Steve and Patty Petty and got to meet a bunch of the local triathletes. It's a small group but everybody's really motivated to take advantage of what the island has to offer - an abundance of water, there's no real long bike rides, but if you're outside you can take advantage of your surroundings.

Triathlon does a real good job of getting the most out of people and I felt they were enthusiastic and they had great surroundings to take advantage of.

I rode the length of the island when I was there and I think people who haven't been to Bermuda will be surprised by the hills. It's much more of a winding, rolling course than I think people will be anticipating - it's left, right, up, down, there's very few areas where you can put your head down and just go.

How do you prepare for a race like this?

It fits well with how I already train and with my current training goals.

I very rarely pick a race and just train for it. For the most part I sit down with my coach and think about trying to be the most complete triathlete I can be.

That means that no matter what the course or distance I'll have something in my arsenal to help me compete.

The way I train is to try and eliminate my weaknesses, when I pick a race I try and play to my strengths.

When I first started training it was my running that was my weak point, then for a while it was my cycling. There's always something to work on - you've got three different sports, a myriad of distances and then the conditions are always changing.

If, by some miracle, you've mastered all that, you still have to race the people.

I try to pick at least one brand new race to enter each year. It keeps things fresh, the sport is growing and becoming more and more popular.

There's always a race out there I haven't done yet, or new ones on the calendar like Escape to Bermuda.

How long have you been competing?

I did my first triathlon in June 2003. I was a swimmer growing up. I went to the University of Michigan and I swam there.

I hung up my suit and goggles in the 90s and thought I was done with my athletic career.

I took a bunch of different jobs and I figured out a lot about what I didn't want to do and not so much about what I did want to do.

Eventually I figured out I wanted to be an athlete again. I had some early success with triathlon and it took off from there.

Whereas swimming seems to be a young man's sport, triathletes tend to get better with age. Is that something you've found?

The great thing about triathlon is it's three different sports in one.

I find that, and this really rang true when I came to Bermuda, for most people here it's more of a lifestyle than anything.

You find that once you are involved with triathlon other parts of your life just fall into place and fit in around it.

Triathlon is part of what they do. It makes them who they are.

Do you have to be a little bit obsessive to be a triathlete?

I think the sport naturally attracts obsessive-compulsive people. Luckily for me I already have that nice attribute so it wasn't that difficult for me to become obsessive about training.

I've always been a little bit of a masochist. I actually quite enjoy the pain.

It's very rewarding, but it's very difficult. For some reason I've always been attracted to sports that make you push yourself to the limit. I had a small break after I quit swimming and I should have picked up a set of golf clubs but I went straight on and became a triathlete.

Your training schedule is obviously very intense. Tell us a little bit about how you train?

I pretty much swim, bike and run every day and take Sundays off.

The way I train is to combine two sports in the morning and do the third in the evening. I like to train sports back-to-back because that allows me a longer period of down time to spend with my family,

It also replicates race conditions. Saturdays I always try and change it up and do something a little bit different - maybe train swim, bike, run 1-2-3 and get it all done in one go, or train really early in the morning or late at night.

Does it help being around such inspiring scenery in Colorado?

Colorado is amazing - particularly for those long bike rides. Where I am, you can go west into the mountains or east out onto the plains. I keep reading that Colorado has more days of sunshine than any other state in the U.S., so it's got to be a good place to train.

What training method/technique has helped you the most?

I think putting workouts back to back was a bit of a breakthrough for me. Triathlons involve an awful lot of training, particularly if you have a job, and if you can do your workouts for the day in one go, then you still can manage to have some downtime.

What would you say is your greatest achievement?

Finding the sport was a big thing for me. The Olympics was coming up, so I dedicated myself to qualifying and once I went to Athens I thought that would be it for me.

After the Olympics my wife came down with cancer. The biggest decision we made together as a family at that point was to live the way we want to live and for us to call the shots.

Instead of letting opportunities pass us by we really decided to work on our dreams and to live our dreams.

Right after the games we decided for me to see how good I could be, with her standing behind me and travelling with me.

We were starting to reach the stage where we realized that we were not invincible, but I'm not sure it had fully dawned on us. Everything had gone our way and when the chips came down the other way the whole house came crumbling down.

We decided we weren't going to let it affect us and that we would use it as a reason to live our dreams. I think that's the best thing we've done.

She's not out of the woods yet but she's doing fantastic. She had a good cat scan result and we are hopeful.

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