Triathlon legend Sebastian Kienle is back in race action and a winning Age Grouper, but not in triathlon.
The former IRONMAN World Champion ended his career in Pro swim/bike/run in late 2023 but has found a new pursuit to fulfil his competitive desires – HYROX.
The 40-year-old German great – always one of the most popular men in the sport – is now a fully fledged Age Grouper in the fitness competition, and over the weekend in Hamburg he was back in race action.
Sebi finished 14th overall in a time of 1:04:35, but he did manage to claim top spot in the 40-44 Age Group category as a reported field of around 8,500 athletes took part.
Kienle on HYROX Hamburg, and London is next
Prior to the race Sebi had talked about his pivot to this new endeavour, explaining his feelings and motivations in a post on his Instagram account.
He said: “Thought you are retired? Yes and sometimes I feel tired but more often I feel re-energized. Over the next month you will mainly see HYROX content here. I knew after my last Hyrox race in Berlin that I want to do more and that I want to try a little bit more seriously. But during summer I wanted to focus on the gravel season so today is the first time since Berlin that i will do a sled pull again… But that does‘t mean that I‘m not fit. I think I built a pretty good foundation.
“Funny enough I think the biggest „problem“ in HYROX will be running for me. I ran something like 70k last week just because running is so nice to explore and convenient when you are traveling. After a couple of month with very little running I thought my Achilles problems were maybe gone forever, turns out their are not, the left one gave me a pretty clear sign to not overdo it… So I have to be smart with running volume but luckily enough in Hyrox just like in triathlon there are a lot of different ways to push your cario system w.o. running.”
The great news for UK Kienle fans is that they’ll get to see him in action again soon when he competes in HYROX London from November 29 to December 1 as he targets overall podiums once again.
What is HYROX?
So what is HYROX? Good question, and the answer is a number of different disciplines – a bit like swim/bike/run but even more diverse. It combines both running & functional workout stations, where participants run 1km, followed by 1 functional workout station, repeated eight times. Each race is hosted indoors in large exhibition halls.
Those eight disiciplines are:
- SkiErg
- Sled Push
- Sled Pull
- Burpee Broad Jumps
- Rowing
- Farmers Carry
- Sandbag Lunges
- Wall Balls
