On 2 January 2010, three months after her record-breaking win in Kona, Chrissie Wellington was bike riding in SUB-ZERO weather near her home in Putney outside London. While most of the northern hemisphere was eating the last of its vast supply of Christmas pudding and keeping warm indoors, she was thinking about Hawaii in October 2010.

Then her front wheel hit a patch of hard ice and she lost her steering in a millisecond. The most significant player in women’s world Ironman plummeted to the hard cold tar and slid for several metres. In that short blurred moment, she’d broken her right wrist and bones in her hand and fingers. We did this interview with her before and after her crash.

There are a lot of people out there that don’t know what they want from life. Christine Ann Wellington is not one of them. The Suffolk-born three-time Ironman World Champion is like a heat-seeking missile. She seems to spot her target and nearly always gets it. Not only has she won three successive IRONMAN World Championships, she also won in 8:54:02 last year, breaking the 17-year-old course record set by Paula Newby-Fraser. Her achievements are on an impressive scale, considering her late start in the sport. She only gave up her career as a civil servant in February 2007. At the time, she was a Government policy adviser on international development.
Her success has brought her fame but she remains at the modest end of the scale. You could label the Iron Lady a humanitarian. She is a believer in development not just in the sport of triathlon but in general. The 33-year-old winner has heart. According to Chrissie, her role models are her parents, Lin and Steve, who have always been extremely supportive of her and as a young girl encouraged her to take part in as many activities as possible. “When I was a youngster the best thing about sport was the opportunity it gave me to spend time with my friends and keep reasonably fit,” says Chrissie. Clearly the Brit has taken her fitness to new heights during her ascent in triathlon. She has come a long way since her first triathlon in 2004:
“My very first attempt at triathlon was the Eton Super Sprint near London. Clueless just about summed me up. My training had been ad hoc and unstructured to say the least. Tri-suits, body marking, transitions, aid stations... all were alien concepts, and as for bonking, that was definitely not something I wanted to do in public!

Read the full interview in the Mar/Apr 2010 issue of Go Multi Magazine by purchasing the back issue. Email us for details.

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