Australian veteran Cameron Wurf is going to be one of the oldest elite athletes to start the Ironman World Championships in Kona. He believes he can't be ruled out.
Wurf has also been an Olympic rower and continues to ride professionally on the men's UCI world tour for Ineos Grenadiers . Cameron Wurf describes himself as an "exercise junkie," and he would likely have to be given his international sporting career spanning over two decades and three different sports.
Starting his elite career as a rower, Wurf won a world under 23 title in the lightweight coxless fours in 2003.A year later, he was competing in Athens at the Olympic Games but, during his preparations for the 2008 Games in Beijing, he developed tendonitis in his wrist in 2006."Of course, if you've already competed at that level in one sport, you know you've only got one sort of level of sport that you want to compete at," Wurf said.
This year alone, Wurf raced the spring classics campaign, including La Flèche Wallonne and Amstel Gold, as well as five one-week stage races over the European summer. Why then, in his fifth decade, is Wurf putting himself through so much when he has a professional contract in just one sport?"I guess, it's just because I came from that background and when I was doing Ironman … naturally, I just gravitated back towards training with all my old cycling buddies to keep the edge in that.
"People really targeted that, and targeted what I'd done, and I think used what benchmarks I was setting as sort of exactly that, benchmarks. But in the 2022 race, Wurf saw his record crushed by Britain-born Frenchman Sam Laidlaw's 4 hours, 4 minutes and 36 seconds.Of course, a triathlon is not just about being quick on the bike but having the ability to ride 180km — a touch further than riding from Sydney to Newcastle to put it into some perspective — and then punch out a marathon in under three hours.
"And the run, it's really only been this last couple of years that we've seen run times really drop, and that's as guys have got good enough to be able to get through the bike leg at those rapid speeds that we're doing now at a more comfortable level.""The biggest challenge in Hawaii is that heat, and I think the heat's just not affecting the guys like it used to there. I think we're all more acclimatised to that," Wurf said.
"I had that where every year was better and then last time around, which was two years ago now, I slipped back a few places ."But all the people that support me — and Greg's one of them — hardened the resolve to want to fight back and see if you can prove that you can get it done.ABC Sport Daily is your daily sports conversation. We dive into the biggest story of the day and get you up to speed with everything else that's making headlines.
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