Narrandera-born Renee Kiley was the sole Australian competitor in the women’s professional race in the St George Utah (USA) Ironman event at the weekend when the Brisbane-based former Narrandera athlete finished a creditable fourteenth in the world.
She now has a chance to compete in the Ironman World Championships in Kona in October.
Kiley said before the race that a dream result for her would be top 15 and she achieved that in what was the most difficult course she had ever raced on.
The Ironman Triathlon is a long-distance race composed of a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bicycle ride, and a 26.22-mile marathon run. It is renowned for being one of the most challenging single-day racing events in the world.
The event was the yearly world championship and it was the first world championship held outside of Hawaii.
Kiley was in the US for five weeks prior to the event training in altitude in Flagstaff.
Her journey to the start line at this year’s World Championship was unlike any other in the women’s professional field.
She was a pack a day smoker who weighed over 100kg in 2014 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.
Qualifying to compete in the event was a huge dream for her.
“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.
“I thought that it would be a five-or-six-year process but it’s really special that it’s come in my third year racing professionally,” she said.
The rescheduled 2021 Ironman World Championship in Utah was a prelude to the 2022 Supersapians Ironman World Championship in Kona Hawaii this October.
St George became the first location to host the event outside of Hawaii since its origins in 1978, with the Ironman World Championship returning after a two-year Covid-enforced hiatus.
“There was 2300 metres of climbing, two legitimate climbs in that and it was very up and down – you can’t get into a rhythm on that bike course,” 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 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.”
While Kiley was the only Australian professional female on the start line, she had plenty of support from those following along at home in Brisbane, as well as her parents Peter and Sharon Kiley, well known former Narrandera residents now living in Brisbane who travelled to join Renee for the big event.
A cyclist and tech geek at heart, Kiley has a passion for new shiny things and a huge appetite for triathlon and spends most of her time between managing two of the world’s best triathletes and a traditional corporate life.
This article appeared in the Narrandera Argus, 12 May 2022.
