(mechanical sounds)
- Almost all professional athletes,
golfers and tennis players perhaps not included,
tend to have a finite period
when they can maximise their potential
at the top of their sport.
And triathlon, as an endurance sport by its very nature,
is perhaps one of those ones where you can
maximise more time than you might think.
I think of it as like layers to an onion,
you can keep adding those endurance
and experience levels as the years go by.
- Nice analogy, but that inevitable closure
to their career will eventually come rolling around.
So then, what does the professional athlete,
that has spent their whole life racing,
What do they do now?
What do they do with their life?
What career do they take?
Well, we are gonna be exploring that today,
we're gonna be looking at the different paths
that triathletes have taken once their days
as a professional triathlete come to an end.
(whimsical music)
- Bevan Docherty captured almost all the honours
that a triathlete could dream of.
Not only did he become World Champion
at the Madeira ITU Championships in 2004
after an epic sprint battle with Sven Riederer.
He's also a dual Olympic medal winner with silver
at the Athens Olympics and then bronze again
in Beijing four years later.
He also had a number of incredible second places
with second at 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games
and again at the ITU World Champs
in Vancouver four years later.
- Yeah, absolutely incredible I think.
I used to love watching him, it was just
so exciting every race it seemed to be.
And he really just knew how to arrive
on the day and perform well.
And he actually also then went to step up
to Ironman Distance and was really, quite successful at it,
although, you might argue, didn't reach
the same heights that he did in his short course ITU days.
And he did actually comment,
"There is no doubt I have more victories in me,
"however over the last few years
"it's been increasingly more difficult
"to reach that form and even harder to hold it...
"back in the day I could peak for months on end
"but nowadays I'm lucky to get a few weeks."
- Yeah, and interestingly, in terms of what he went on
to do after his career finished,
he had already obtained his private pilot's licence
by the time he'd finished his career,
and then was aspiring to go on
to get his commercial licence, thereafter.
So, quite the change from swim, bike and run.
- Well, this next athlete was one of my idols
when I actually very first started triathlon.
It is Brad Kahlefeldt.
And he is actually one of Australia's most successful
male ITU short course athletes.
And not only did he win the Commonwealth Games on home turf
in the Melbourne 2006 games, he also won multiple
ITU World Championship medals, and also went
to two Olympic Games for Australia.
- Yeah, and it didn't stop there because he moved seamlessly
into a long course career.
He won 70.3's all over the world in different climates
and conditions, and even raced at Ironman Hawaii too.
But after 20 years of racing at the very highest level
in 2018 he hung up the race suit.
- And whilst he may be retired, he has said
that he's gonna continue running as he tries to,
basically, race and do elite marathon running.
But whilst he has stepped away from professional triathlon,
he has maybe taken a slightly different path
from what we might expect, because Brad is currently
in the process of studying for, and completing,
all the necessary procedures for him to start owning
and managing a McDonald's franchise.
(Hawaiian music)
- Our next athlete is Chrissie Wellington,
who burst unannounced onto the scene, effectively,
in 2007 by virtue of winning her first attempt
at the Ironman World title in Hawaii,
which she'd only qualified for a few weeks previously
at Ironman Korea.
Now fast forward five jam-packed seasons later
and Chrissie was retiring, unbeaten,
from Ironman distance racing,
after winning her fourth global title in 2011.
She returned home to the U.K. after having been living
in the U.S. in 2012, where she embarked
on a new relationship with the Parkrun organisation,
who organise free weekly, timed 5k running events
and are free and open to everyone.
- She actually first encountered Parkrun and their events
when she was actually out for a Saturday jog in London
and she went through Richmond Park
and just stumbled across hundreds of people lining up
to take part in one of their events.
And she decided she'd gate crash it that day
but she did of course return and officially take part.
But then in February 2013 she actually joined forces
with Parkrun and essentially joined to bang the drum
for participation within the organisation.
And also has helped other events with healthy lifestyle,
and also just getting people active.
Well our next athlete is Greg Welch, and he's not only
in the Ironman Hall of Fame, he's also
in Triathlon Australia's and the ITU's Hall of Fame.
And he is one of the great icons of the sport.
- Yeah, now although he'd actually won
the ITU short course world title in 1990,
he became the first known American male
to win on the Big Island in 1994
when he famously beat Dave Scott who was racing back on
the island for the first time since he'd had
the incredible Iron War of 1989 with Mark Allen.
And Greg Welch has gone on to state that,
"This was the biggest highlight of my life.
"I still see Hawaii as being the highlight
"of our sport and the premier race
"outside of the Olympic Games."
"Those are the two races that you want to win."
- Yeah, and although now, you will actually see him
doing a lot of the commentary on
the Ironman live feed online for the major Ironman races.
He actually, also, holds quite a senior role at Oakley
where he helps and deals with a lot
of the world's top athletes in, not only triathlon,
but also summer and winter sports.
Well now we have an exceptional athlete, Shelia Taormina,
and so exceptional, in fact, that we're not going
to necessarily be discussing her retirement from triathlon,
but rather, her retirement after three sports,
and at quite a high level as well.
- She started off her career as a swimmer
and was a member of the 4x200 freestyle relay quartet
and won gold medal at the Atlanta Olympic Games in 1996.
She then turned her hand to Olympic distance triathlon
and by the inaugural Games at Sydney
she had come a very impressive sixth place.
She then managed to win the ITU World Championships
in Madeira in the next Olympic year of 2004,
where she then went on to compete at that Athens Games
and become a triple Olympian at that point.
- Yeah, and this is where the story
gets even more interesting because as if that wasn't enough,
being content with going to two Olympic Games
swimming and triathlons, she then decided,
"Why not give it another go, go to another
"Olympic Games," but now in Modern Pentathlon.
So now, she had to add shooting, fencing,
and horse riding into the mix.
- Yeah, so at the grand old age of 37 she became the first,
and still only, woman to compete
in three different sports
across three different Olympic Games,
but actually four different Games in total,
'cause there was two as triathlon.
And, if you ask me, that is just one heck
of a way to retire from sport.
Conrad Stoltz is, arguably, the most notable triathlete
to come out of South Africa.
After a career of 24 long years as
a professional triathlete,
across-road and off-road triathlon,
but he's probably most well known for
his seven off-road world titles
at Xterra and Cross Triathlon.
- I was very fortunate to actually race him a couple times
and I do remember at ITU World Cross Champs
he came past me like a steam train on the bike.
He was absolutely incredible.
In addition to all that, he's been to two Olympic Games
and he's won over 50 Xterra World Tour events,
which is incredible.
But since his retirement from the sport, Conrad,
or also known as the Cave Man, has really got stuck
into his side, throwing his passion and energy
into the fast-growing industry of trail building
in and around his hometown of Stellenbosch in South Africa.
- Now, this is just a selection of some of the athletes
who've gone on to do some rather, well shall we say,
interesting things with their lives
after their careers have finished,
and we really hope you've enjoyed hearing them.
- Yeah, of course there are probably
plenty more interesting stories out there post-racing life,
so if you do know of any, please do drop them
in the comments section below.
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And if you would like to see our interview
with some professional athletes and seeing what they eat,
then just click down here.
- And for an interview that was done
with Chrissie Wellington, you can see that here.