Chrissie Wellington’s name is now firmly etched into Kona history – her brilliant triathlon career punctuated by four glorious IRONMAN World Championship victories on the Big Island.
Like so many relationships though, the Chrissie/Kona swim/bike/run love story has many levels – some which continue to run through her life years after her retirement.
The British legend has already spoken to us this week about her astonishing victory as a Kona rookie in 2007, and the inevitable comparisons with American prodigy Taylor Knibb in 2023.
She has also talked about the expectation and pressure which came with all that glory in October, and how it still impacts her now.
Staying on top is harder
There is a widely accepted belief in elite sports that getting to the top of the mountain is easier than staying there, and Chrissie explained how that rang true for her.
While the shock rookie win in 2007 was a brilliant awakening which changed her life for ever, she puts just as much value on those later victories. Simply because of the weight of expectation she carried, and the pressure it created.
She told TRI247: “There was a lot of pride in being able to manage the weight of expectation.
And so I think my latter victories almost mean more because I was carrying the crown, which can be heavy.
“That comes with it, as do all of the other things that a professional athlete must deal with. And so being able to manage that and being able to create a team around me that was able to help me makes those performances all the more special.
“My life changed beyond recognition because I’d achieved something that I’d never envisaged and with that comes a great deal of surprise and pride. But also for me, it was just this incredible platform, this incredible opportunity, and to be standing in that spotlight and have that responsibility and that opportunity was just such a privilege, it really was.
“And although it can be challenging, you don’t go through that alone. Like I said, you’ve got an incredible team around you. But I never lost sight of the privilege that was being world champion, and I still don’t.”
‘Sport moves on, and we need to’
Chrissie would go down in Kona folklore, not least for her final victory in 2011 when she overcame incredible pain from a bike crash a fortnight before to register her hardest-fought triumph and retire with a perfect record over the full distance.
Now, 12 years on, it is fascinating to hear her describe the emotions of watching and talking about race-week from outside of the inner bubble of being one of the athletes contending for the win.
She explained: “Looking back now, with honesty, I find this week incredibly challenging. Because there’s a lot of self-worth that’s attached to your physicality. And being the athlete that is capable of becoming world champion.
And to realise that you’re no longer that athlete and you’re no longer that person is always a bit confronting.
“And I don’t normally think of it in the normal course of life, because I’m so content and life is a series of incarnations and my life has taken me in different directions. It has to be for every professional athlete at some point.
“But I think this week for me is always quite difficult because I realise I’m no longer that athlete that is capable of standing on the podium and I have to be very kind to myself and remind myself that I guess I still have self worth even though I’m not capable of winning the World Championships and I’m not capable of doing an eight-hour-whatever Ironman-distance race.
“I don’t know if other retired professional athletes experience that, but I have to do something different on Saturday night, I can’t sit there there glued to the screen because I need to just remind myself that my worth is beyond that of being a high-performing athlete.”
Chrissie spoke to us at Challenge Roth back in June about the pleasure it gave her to see her world-record full-distance time, which had stood for 12 years, finally be broken by the next generation.
And she echoed that when she signed off this interview by saying: “Sport moves on, and we need to. And I’m just really excited about the direction that it’s going in terms of the strength of the female field.”
Laura Siddall: 10 things I’ve learned from my professional triathlon career
