Australian Olympic triathlon star makes major career announcement

Natalie Van Coevorden’s career in short-course racing appears to be over with the Australian star making a major career decision.

Instead of racing next Saturday’s WTCS Grand Final in Torremolinos-Andalucia, the 31-year-old has made the decision to end her short-course career and move up in distance – with immediate effect.

The move ends a 13-year run in ITU/WTCS combat, which Van Coevorden topped off this year by being selected for the Australian team for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. She would finish 42nd in a brutal individual race in the French capital, and was part of the Aussie team which came home 12th in the Mixed Relay.

Now for Natalie the future will be at middle distance, and she explained her decision in a heartfelt post on her Instagram account.

Van Coevorden ends short-course career

She wrote: “Many of you have asked why I am not racing the Grand Final and the simple answer is that I have decided that I will be focusing on 70.3 / middle distance from now on. This might seem like a bit of a retirement post but it’s nice to reflect and let go of this chapter before I move on to the next.

“When I was 18 in 2011, I did my first ITU junior race, very raw to the sport of triathlon. Four months later, I had qualified myself for junior world champs and in that first year, I hit the benchmark to race my first World Cup and my first World Series in my home town of Sydney. 13 years on and 130 World Triathlon races later, I am proud to be:

– an Olympian
– Commonwealth games medalist
– World Championship relay medalist
– WTCS medalist
– WTCS relay medalist
– World Cup medalist
– Apart of some strong French GP and German Bundesliga Podiums

‘Special achievement’ for Natalie

“A special achievement for me is going to 12 world championships for Australia and being the 42nd Australian women compete at an elite WC. Some results although might have not been a podium, some times it just takes a day when you feel like everything came together to make it a memorable race.

“I’m not going to lie, I went through some tough times. Times when I could have given up. More than the average person knows about. I am proud that no matter what was happening, I showed up and made the most of every opportunity I had.

Thank you to everyone who has been apart of this journey. It’s been a lot of you. Also thank you to the people who have believed in me already and have jumped upon this new one.”