Train for OLY even tho your gonna SPRINT

There is a couple ways to look at it...

I became faster at Oly's when I was training for HIM's and IM's.  That may just be the fact I was developing a better base.  I really thing the over distance training helps.

HOWEVER, shorter distance plans may focus more on speedwork later in the plan AND more brick/transition work that the longer plans don't have.

Both methods have their upsides.

For me?  I know my base can always use improving, and I would rather spend more time working on that, than doing less time doing speedwork.  Speedwork hurts me a lot more than base training.

I can't advocate doing speedwork early in the season.  It's not a good idea IMO and could be a fast ticket to injury and a ruined season.

Your body is not ready for it.  Early season is for base training.  Once a solid base is establish, introducing speedwork is a good idea.  I would say maybe the last half of a plan, with the first half almost entirely dedicated to base training.

A nice hybrid could be OLY training for the base portion to get some over distances in, then do some really specific sprint training workouts in the last 1/3 of the plan.

Over distance training really helps with the mind too.  During HIM training, I was doing 3-4 hour long rides.  Once you get mentally used to that, the 1:15 for a Oly seems short, even if you are going harder.

I did the bronze 20-week Oly plan last year, thinking I was going to actually do an Oly.  Wound up doing 3 sprints (among other things) and did well in them.

I'm considering Silver for next year as there is an Intermediate Sprint plan avalible in Silver.

I'm not sure what other people thing about it, but I LOVE this book.  Even if it's just to get ideas and look at plans.  I used several different plans from this book with good results.  They have 8-12 different plans for each race distance (sprint - IM) for different ability levels.  Granted, they plans are similar, so see a couple, you can see the pattern they used to get the rest.  But I still really like it.  Plus for 20 bucks?  Can't beat it...

 http://www.amazon.com/Triathlete-Magazines-Essential-Week-Training/dp/0446696765

I ended up using a plan on BT for my IM plan, because I liked it, AND it loads into you logs really well.

I would have to say the Silver plans are better IMO.  They offer more detail and can be Heart Rate based, RPE based.  The bronze are not bad, but I find that I only consider the Silver plans when I'm selecting.  Not cuz they are "silver" but they seem to fit me better.

I'm currently deciding if I want to do the 21 week OLY plan to prep me for my HIM in the spring or do an HIM plan (yes, contrary to the OP).  I saw that the long bikes and runs (the most important for long distance racing) are the same between the two plans.

That's something you need to consider.  An advanced Oly plan could be more hours and more intense than a beginner HIM plan.  So training with a plan for a "longer" race does not mean everything.