Renee Kiley Continues Incredible Journey At Ironman World Championship

Renee Kiley will be the sole Australian in the women’s professional race in St. George and the Brisbane-based athlete is looking forward to getting to the start line of a World Championship that has been a long time coming.

“I’m feeling pretty relaxed right now, I’ve been over in the US for the last five weeks training up in altitude in Flagstaff and came down here early so I’ve already been here for over a week,” said Kiley. “I’m actually going good and settled and relaxed and having fun and getting familiar with the course right now, but I have no doubt that the nerves will hit some time in the middle of next week.”

Kiley’s journey to the start line at this year’s World Championship is unlike any other in the women’s professional field. Back in 2014 Kiley was a pack a day smoker who weighed over 100kg and had not exercised in years. From there she found the sport of triathlon and transformed her life, becoming a professional athlete in 2017, and recently qualifying for her first World Championship at the top level.

“I think it has a different meaning for me. Obviously with my background, if I look back seven or eight years ago I didn’t even know what a triathlon was. I was almost twice the size I am now and smoking a pack of cigarettes a day so I would never in a million years have thought I would even be turning to sport let alone in the position I am now,” said Kiley. “I’m really trying to enjoy the journey, I think the last few years I’ve been so focused on getting better and wanting to be on the podium and wanting my IRONMAN win and wanting the IRONMAN World Championship qualification that I kind of haven’t spent the time reflecting on where I’ve come from.

“This is a huge dream for me, when I turned professional it was something I sat down with my coach at the time and said maybe it might be a slight possibility that I could qualify for the World Championships by the end of my career, and I thought that would be a five or six year process but it’s really special that it’s come in my third year racing professionally and I’m really going to try and saviour the moment and reflect on where I’ve come from,” she said.

This year is set to be a year like no other for IRONMAN, with the rescheduled 2021 IRONMAN World Championship to be held this Saturday 7 May in Utah, ahead of the 2022 Supersapians IRONMAN World Championship in Kona, Hawai’i this October.

St. George becomes the first location to host the event outside of Hawai’i since its origins in 1978, with the IRONMAN World Championship returning after a two-year COVID-enforced hiatus.

The St. George course is set to challenge even the best IRONMAN athletes and Kiley has been spending the last week coming to terms with what lies ahead.

“I don’t even know where to start, I actually ran the run course for the first time yesterday and I turned to my friend, and said I think I feel like a little niggle in my hip and I think I need to make up an excuse why I can’t be in this race,” laughed Kiley. “People might look at this course on paper and go that looks like a tough course, but I can tell you now, I’ve done Kona twice as an age grouper, it’s the conditions that make Kona a difficult race, the actual course itself is not really that difficult, but this course combined with the conditions are going to make this such a tough day.

“Honestly, I’ve had moments all week and a couple of pro friends of mine we’ve been chatting during the week questioning whether we’re fit enough and prepared enough because I think the course is scaring everyone a little bit,” she said. “There’s 2,300metres of climbing, and there’s two legitimate climbs in that, it’s very up and down, you can’t get into a rhythm on that bike course. It’s going to zap everyone’s legs and that climb up Snow Canyon in the last 15km of the race and then not only that but then you’ve got the run course, there’s literally no flat on the run course it’s either a two or three kilometre downhill which then means a two or three kilometre uphill and then you’ve got that again.

“I think the race is going to be really exciting because I think come the second half of that marathon, we’re going to see some pretty brutal explosions,” she said.

Over the last two years it’s been incredibly tough for athletes to head overseas to race but Kiley has jumped every hurdle in front of her to get to the events that are important to her development, spending more than her fair share of time in hotel quarantine.

Kiley secured her spot on the start line at the IRONMAN World Championship at IRONMAN Hamburg last August with a second place finish.

“My experience during COVID has probably been different to a lot of the athletes in the Oceania region, a lot of the athletes in the Oceania region chose not to travel and to stay local but actually for the last two years I’ve spent four or five months of each year in the US and that was for two reasons,” she said. “I enjoy racing against the best in the world, that’s what really motivates me each day, it doesn’t motivate me racing the smaller fields and racing locally all the time, I really enjoy getting out of my comfort zone and I enjoy the thrill of being pushed a lot more racing the best in the world, but it was also a choice I made because I felt like it was best for my long term development.

“I felt like I needed to come overseas and race in those big quality fields and even if that meant not earning a lot of money and if it meant getting beat, I really felt for my long term development in the sport it was best for me and I’m really hoping that will pay off next week because I don’t feel intimidated by anyone on the start line anymore because of those experiences,” she said.

While Kiley will be the only Australian professional female on the start line she’s getting plenty of support from those following along at home.

“It’s obviously not nice people having to pull out of a race because of injury and whatever else they have going on, but I did have a little smile to myself the other day thinking wow, I’m the only Aussie female on the start line which is actually pretty cool at a World Championship so I really hope all the Aussies get behind me on race day and at least there can be cyber cheering for me,” she said.