Athlete of the Weekend

Anthony Donnelly made his return to triathlon at the Canberra Half, and he did it in style.

About 15 months ago, Anthony was hit by a car while returning home after a morning training session in Watson’s Bay. The impact broke his ankle. His bike was a write off.

With a lot of hard work – and a determination to return to Ironman, he has regained most of the movement in his ankle. And he’s running faster now than ever. A few weeks ago, he bought a new bike.

This weekend the objective for him was to complete the race - his first since Ironman 2004. As he’s a five-time finisher of Ironman Australia, he didn’t need to qualify this year. The ONE requirement was that he complete one of the qualifying races.

As many of us found out, the bike course involved several laps, but of varying dimensions. And the signs weren’t clear enough.

Anthony found himself at T2 with just 75km on his odometer and he knew something wasn’t right. After checking with some officials, he rode back out on the course, retracing the final 20km, until he reached the spot where he should have turned left instead of going straight.

At that point, the race officials there suggested he finish the lap and the course as it was designed. And so he did. For a short period of time, he was the last cyclist on the course.

He made it back into T2 with 122.6km done and then went out and ran. His finish time of about 7 hours reflects his persistence to do it the right way.

[After the race, he joked that at least the extra mileage allowed him to drop the guy who was hugging his wheel.]

As he’s a fit looking guy, there were a lot of double takes from spectators as he cruised through the run – leading the finish-line announcer to question what he was doing crossing the line so late in the day.

The race referee was beside himself that Anthony did what he did, assuring him that he had earned his spot to go to Port Mac. And so while the results don’t show it, his performance is what I consider to be remarkable.

Top of the Morning to you Mr Donnelly!!