Sebastian Kienle on how much being ‘in the mix’ at Kona last year meant

Sebastian Kienle‘s latest ‘Discontinued’ video, embedded below, shows a man at peace with the timing of his impending retirement from the sport – but it also reveals he was having second thoughts after his Kona performance last October.

The German has won pretty much every title that matters in middle and long-distance triathlon – including the IRONMAN World Championship, the 70.3 Worlds and his beloved Challenge Roth.

Kona podium felt possible

It was that last event he chose as his final big race and while a 14th-place finish behind Magnus Ditlev wasn’t in his original script, he did acknowledge it underlined the timing of his exit was the right one – and admits it was very different to his feelings after the IMWC just nine months ago.

Having already announced it would be his last Kona appearance, Kienle rolled back the years with a sixth-placed finish in his fastest time there – even reeling in and overtaking Ditlev in the latter stages of the marathon as a staggering 10 men went under the eight-hour mark, with Gustav Iden leading them home.

The post-race press conference normally features the first five finishers. Not in 2022, when an extra chair was added for Kienle. At the time he hailed a new generation and said it “was a good way to retire” but this latest video suggests that over the winter there might have been some nagging doubts.

His career has spanned the generations – early on he was racing the likes of Normann Stadler and Chris McCormack, who both won the IMWC twice in Hawaii. At the height of his powers he was vying with fellow Germans Jan Frodeno and Patrick Lange for the Kona crown and now it’s the new generation of Ditlev, Iden and co.

And that longevity at the highest level clearly matters, with Kienle saying of Kona 2022: “That definitely meant a lot to me to be in that race.

“To still be up there competing with the best – not for the win, but in the mix.

“And with the result I had in Kona it was still somewhere back in my mind that I’m still up there and probably not win Kona, but still make the podium.”

‘I’m not able to put myself through this anymore’

But he says this season and Challenge Roth, where he memorably described Ditlev’s display as triathlon’s “moon landing moment”, has changed that view – and actually left him in a more contented place in terms of his retirement.

“But now with these races I’ve had I realise that I’m not able to put myself through this anymore.

“The last couple of kilometres [at Challenge Roth] I realised that this was another step towards the end of my career – and probably the biggest step. And also the one that meant the most to me.

“I mean this whole year I was always focussed on the next race, on the big highlights, and I still have a couple of races but for me and I think for most of the other people that was pretty much it.

“It was the biggest stage I could have imagined for my last big race, not just on home soil but in general.”