Ironman
The jellyfish sting that didn't keep Daniela Ryf from a new Ironman record
The Ironman World Championship in Hawaii is already one of the toughest tests of athletic prowess on the planet, so what you really don't need is the agony of a jellyfish sting at the start.
The snapshot
Since making the step up from standard distance triathlon in 2014, Switzerland's Daniela Ryf has enjoyed a decent run at the Ironman World Championship. She won it in 2015, and repeated the feat the following two years.
So here we are on October 13, 2018, waiting on the starting line with Ryf looking for a fourth consecutive title. It's at this point that Mother Nature stepped in, clearly feeling the need to even things up a bit.
Just before the swim stage was due to start, Ryf felt the searing pain of a jellyfish sting. Some people might have given up there and then, but Ryf pushed through the first pain barrier before the race had even begun.
"I didn't know if I could stand the pain after being stung," she says. "I knew that my family, my coach and my fans were thrilled with me, though, so giving up wasn't an option."
Ryf took the win despite a bad start, when she was stung by a jellyfish
© Jesper Gronnemark/Red Bull Content Pool
The deficit
Despite having summoned all her mental strength to get through the swim stage, Ryf then had another obstacle to overcome. The UK's Lucy Charles-Barclay is always a daunting opponent in the water and that day she was in incredible form. By the time Ryf reached her bike, the Brit had opened up a nine-minute lead, setting an all-time course record for the swim stage.
How do you deal with a situation like that in your biggest race of the year? "The plan was to get through the swim and get on the bike in the hope that the pain subsided," says Ryf. Even with her track record at the event, that fourth consecutive title was looking like a distant prospect.
The comeback
Where others would have wilted, however, Ryf showed just why she was already a three-time champion here. On the bike stage, she delved deep into her mental and physical resources to put on a comeback for the record books. Anything Charles-Barclay could do, Ryf could match and she powered her way through the 180.25km in a course record of 4h 26m 7s, eating up that nine-minute deficit with apparent ease and setting off on the run in first place.
After such a bad start and such a low, to turn that around, I could hardly believe it
The finish
From that point onwards, the result never looked in doubt. The fact that she'd overcome such a difficult start gave Ryf incredible belief as she finished the run in under three hours and set a new full-course record of 8h 26m 18s, beating the previous best by an incredible 20 minutes.
"After such a bad start and such a low, to turn that around, I could hardly believe it," recalls Ryf. "When I finished, I just shook my head, because I could hardly believe it myself."
