Cameron Wurf ready to leverage experience in battle against elite triathletes at Kona 2024
Cameron Wurf ready to face world’s best in high-stakes Kona IRONMAN showdown. How he prepared.
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Tasmanian Cameron Wurf says he will dig deep into his stores of experience when he lines up alongside the best professional triathletes in the world at the 2024 IRONMAN World Championship men’s race in Kona, Hawaii, this weekend.
Wurf, 41, will be one of five Australians on the 50-strong professional start list set to take on the 3.8km swim, 180km ride and 42.2km run on Saturday.
The 41-year-old will race at his seventh IRONMAN World Championship, with his best result being fifth in 2019.
“I feel quite good at this point _ I don’t think anyone really knows how they feel though,” he said.
“You go through all the same emotions of questioning your build up, have I done too much, am I doing too little _ but it’s not my first rodeo.
“I’ve been here a few times before and you try to learn from all those experiences.
“This time I’m trying to put together all of those learnings and I’ve got a plan that I think is going to have me the best on race day and I’m on track with that, so I’m looking forward to Saturday.”
Wurf splits his time between triathlon and professional cycling with the UCI world tour team Ineos Grenadiers.
It makes for a delicate balancing act to perform at his peak in both sports.
“The past couple of years I’ve struggled, particularly on the triathlon side, managing that,” he said.
“I’m part of a team, and the team is far more important than the individual.
“So I’ve put that ahead of my own aspirations.”
Professional triathlon is the area that had to give.
“I’ve accepted that I can’t really target IRONMAN for a large part of the year and adjusted my training accordingly, with the agreement that I’d have the opportunity to focus on Kona for the last 10 weeks,” he said.
“I got fit as I could up until the end of August, just racing on the bike and doing the training we could fit in. Then we’ve had a solid, more structured and concentrated IRONMAN preparation in the past couple of months.
“That was the plan I wanted at the start of the year, and I’ve been able to execute it.
“Now it’s just wait and see where that puts me against the rest of the world on Saturday.”
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