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As she nears the end of a professional career spanning more than 20 years, Nicola Spirig knows it won’t be easy to say goodbye to triathlon, nor will she ever be able to put her training days behind her.
“I will always train because I just need to be active to feel good,” Spirig tells DailyExpertNews Sport as she begins her final season in triathlon. “If I don’t move, I’m not happy; I’m moody, I’m angry, I just don’t feel right.”
Old habits can be hard to die, but 40-year-old Spirig knows now is the time for a change.
She has three children aged nine, five and three and is looking forward to more family time and a break from her grueling workout schedule.
Her new routine, she says, will likely involve an hour of exercise each morning, rather than the three daily sessions of swimming, biking, and running she’s become accustomed to.
“Being a top athlete also means that I have to train every day,” says Spirig. “There are no weekends, there are no holidays, I’m always training…always ready to go hard.”
If the start of her final season is anything, then Spirig, a two-time Olympic medalist and six-time European champion, will not quietly end her professional triathlon career.
Earlier this year, a serious cycling accident threatened to derail her season as she suffered three broken ribs, a broken collarbone and a punctured lung.
That happened months before Spirig was set to participate in the Phoenix Sub8 project, a team-backed challenge in which two women – Spirig and British triathlete Katrina Matthews – attempted to complete a full-distance triathlon – 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike Running 26.2 miles — for the first time in less than eight hours.
Remarkably, despite injuries sustained in the bike crash, Spirig completed the June 5 challenge in seven hours, 34 minutes and 19 seconds at Germany’s Lausitzring racetrack, three minutes behind Matthews.
“The accident was in February… I was not allowed to breathe hard, which prevented me from training properly,” Spirig says.
“I was about 12 weeks short of the training I should have done but still the last few weeks before the Sub8 project went really well and I could see how the fitness was coming, I could see how I was getting stronger and faster. And I would say I made the best of the situation 100%.”
Unlike a regular triathlon, Spirig was joined by a team of 10 pacemakers for the Sub8 project to create the conditions for a fast time – especially on the bike.
The challenge, and its build-up, is part of Nicola’s Spirit – a short film released earlier this month that provides insight into Spirig’s long, award-winning triathlon career.
The Swiss star started the sport at the age of 10 and went on to compete in more Olympics – five – than any other triathlete, winning gold in London 2012 and silver in Rio 2016. This was at a time when triathlon was a relatively new sport was in the Olympic program which made its debut in 2000.
“I was a pretty good junior and I beat some Swiss athletes going to the Sydney (2000) Olympics, so I thought it would probably be possible to go to the Olympics next time,” says Spirig.
“That’s when my personal Olympic dream really started. But going five times and actually becoming an Olympic champion and winning another medal was never on my mind.
“I thought I would stop much earlier. I did my studies – I’m a lawyer, so I thought after the second Olympics I would have a more or less normal life as a lawyer.”
But even now that Spirig is near the end of her career and has competed in more than 120 World Triathlon events, her love for the sport still burns as brightly as ever.
“The most important thing is the passion for it — I still love it,” she says.
“On the one hand I love to train, to move, to be active; it just makes me feel good. And on the other hand I like the challenges and the races and seeing where my limits are and how far I can go, how fast I can go.”
In addition to the medals and podium finishes – many of which have been – Spirig has learned life lessons from her triathlon career – even drawing on her racing experience while training as a lawyer.
“I had the final exams and everyone was so scared and anxious,” she recalls. “I just said, well, I was under pressure before. I know how to handle pressure because I always have it in races and I know how to work towards a goal – how to be efficient, how to plan.
“They weren’t training sessions, they were study sessions. For me, in a way, it was so easy because I learned all this in sport and I could just apply it to my studies.”
Sport, she says, “helps you deal with real problems in life.” But there have also been times when life has helped Spirig cope with her approach to sports.
That includes how her attitude to training changed after she had kids — a time when recovery was no more and sometimes amounted to playing with Lego, she jokes.
“For example, after a bad session, before I had kids, I would think about it for days and think about why it was a bad session and what I could have done differently,” Spirig says.
“And now there’s just no time. I see there are so many more important things in life that it’s not worth getting mad about a single bad training session.”
Spirig, whose husband, Reto Hug, is a former Swiss triathlete, says she would have been ready to retire after the birth of her first child in 2013 and her gold medal in the 2012 Olympics — a race that was celebrated. decided by a dramatic photo finish.
After a sprint to the line between Spirig and Sweden’s Lisa Norden, both athletes got the same finish time. However, Spirig was later judged to have finished less than 6 inches ahead of Norden when she claimed her first Olympic medal.
“The years that followed were always just such a small gift that I could enjoy but didn’t expect,” says Spirig. “I think that’s why I was able to enjoy it and do it for so long – because I always saw it as a plus and a little gift… I just appreciated it.”
She’s not exactly sure what her life will look like after this season. In addition to spending more time with her family, Spirig wants to visit schools to inspire children to play sports and is also busy drafting sponsorship commitments.
And while practice will continue in a limited capacity, later this year she will consider lining up for her final race as a professional triathlete.
“I think I will miss the races because of the emotions,” said Spirig. “Racing means you have really intense emotions. Even if it’s joy, it’s pleasure, or if it’s disappointment – it’s all intense.”
At this stage, however, there are no lasting doubts about her decision to retire, nor regrets about what she would have liked to achieve.
“There’s nothing I would have done differently,” Spirig says. “I just feel it’s time. It’s time for a change, it’s the right decision for the family and I’m happy about that.”
