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Daniela Ryf<br />
In 2018, Ryf won<br />
her fourth Ironman<br />
World Championship<br />
in Hawaii in a row –<br />
and set a new course<br />
record in the process<br />
triathlete, and now she was in the World<br />
Championship. Ryf demonstrated her<br />
superiority on the bike to the full – eightand-a-half<br />
hours in, she was way out in<br />
front, about to take the title – but 5km<br />
from the finish, the fire inside went out.<br />
Australia’s Mirinda Carfrae had made up<br />
the 10 minutes between them. She closed<br />
in on Ryf, overtook and set a pace that the<br />
Swiss athlete couldn’t keep up with.<br />
“After the race, I might well have been<br />
proud to have given it my best,” Ryf says.<br />
“But when I crossed the finish line, I was<br />
already thinking about the next year. After<br />
all, I now knew how close I’d come to<br />
victory.” Since then, she has woken every<br />
morning with the same thought, playing<br />
and replaying the moment Carfrae closed<br />
in, then passed her at an irresistible pace.<br />
Ryf promptly started the following season<br />
with a string of wins. “<strong>The</strong> fact I couldn’t<br />
keep pace with Mirinda still motivates me<br />
“I IMAGINE<br />
THROWING OFF<br />
DEAD WEIGHT”<br />
in every training session,” she says, even<br />
though younger athletes are now more of<br />
a threat than Carfrae. “If I imagine Mirinda<br />
drawing up beside me, I immediately<br />
pedal harder or run 1kph faster.” Ryf has<br />
transformed a defeat into the perfect<br />
mental stimulation to give purpose to her<br />
exertions, and it’s been the basis for dozens<br />
of subsequent victories. A pretty good deal.<br />
Bad luck mobilises<br />
your energy reserves<br />
October 13, 2018, Ironman Hawaii<br />
As she prepared for the start of the year’s<br />
most important race, the defending<br />
champion felt unbeatable. Ryf was in<br />
fantastic form and had done all of her<br />
homework. But with just two minutes<br />
to go before the swim began, a jellyfish<br />
stung the underside of both her upper<br />
arms. <strong>The</strong> pain shot through her entire<br />
body, right to the tips of her fingers. <strong>The</strong><br />
previous year, a competitor was forced to<br />
retire from the race for the same reason<br />
and was rushed straight to hospital. Ryf<br />
didn’t let anything show and set off into<br />
the maelstrom with the others.<br />
But the pain soon grew worse and she<br />
began falling metre upon metre further<br />
behind. <strong>The</strong>n her arms went numb and<br />
she began to doubt whether she would<br />
be able to complete the 3.86km swim.<br />
Ryf had already given up hope of a finish<br />
near the top of the leaderboard, but she<br />
was determined to carry on out of respect<br />
for the race itself. She now thought of<br />
finishing the race in 14, maybe 15 hours,<br />
way down in last place. But when she<br />
climbed onto her bike, Ryf realised she<br />
was only 10 minutes off the pace. Maybe<br />
this wasn’t over after all.<br />
“In the water, I went through all the<br />
emotions you can imagine,” she says.<br />
“But once I was on the bike, I could think<br />
clearly again.” Ryf decided to ascribe<br />
new meaning to the jellyfish sting: “I<br />
imagined how an extra dash of anger and<br />
additional energy had entered my body<br />
with the pain, and that I’d only be able to<br />
get both out of my body the harder and<br />
more relentlessly I pedalled.” She rode<br />
faster than she’d ever ridden in her life.<br />
Ryf picked off her rivals one by one,<br />
and by the time she started the run, she’d<br />
notched up the fastest-ever bike ride by<br />
a female athlete at Kona. She finished the<br />
race in 8:26:18, which made her not only<br />
world champion but the holder of a new<br />
course record. In doing so, Ryf proved that<br />
our inner transformer can turn negative<br />
energy into something productive. Pain<br />
can give you extra power.<br />
danielaryf.ch<br />
40 THE RED BULLETIN