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CBC reports on Carfrae’s virtual mechanical during Ironman virtual race

CBC's "As It Happens" interviews Mirinda Carfrae about her racing mishap during this weekend's Ironman VR Pro Challenge.

CBC didn’t put her on the airwaves after any of her three Ironman World Championship titles, but when her husband, Tim O’Donnell, accidentally kicked out her connection during last weekend’s Ironman VR Pro Challenge, CBC’s “As It Happens” gave Australia’s Mirinda Carfrae a call.

Mirinda Carfrae at the 2019 Ironman World Championship press conference.

It’s kind of ironic that CBC wasn’t clamouring to interview Mirinda Carfrae after she flew through a 2:50:26 marathon (which remains the women’s run course record) to win the 2014 Ironman World Championship, but followed up with the Australian after she set a different kind of record, becoming the first pro to suffer a “virtual mechanical” in a race.

We reported on Mirinda Carfrae’s “virtual mechanical” during last weekend’s Ironman VR Pro Challenge in our race recap on Sunday morning. About halfway through the 90 km race – Carfrae, Jocelyn McCauley, Angela Naeth and Jeanni Seymour were all competing on the Ironman 70.3 Boulder course using the Rouvy virtual platform – Carfrae’s husband, Tim O’Donnell, accidentally kicked out a cord, disconnecting her from the race.

CBC’s “As It Happens” host Carol Off interviewed Carfrae about the mishap on last night’s show.

Read (and listen) to CBC’s story.

During the interview Carfrae explained how O’Donnell, in an attempt to motivate his wife, was waving two of her Kona trophies in front of her. She encouraged him to go behind her so that the audience could see him on the live Facebook coverage of the race and he accidentally disconnected her from the race.

“He walked around the back and when he came back, he kicked out the cord,” Carfrae told Off. “That’s how my race was effectively ended.”

Related: Laundry and Carfrae take Ironman 70.3 Mont-Tremblant

Once they were able to reconnect the Australian super-mom back to the program, she was put back to the start of the race, effectively putting her out of contention in the virtual race, which was eventually won by McCauley, with Naeth taking second.

“For a few minutes, I was a little mad,” Carfrae continued. “But then, you know, this is life and these things happen. He did not mean to do it. He felt bad enough himself without me piling on.”

We also learned from the interview that O’Donnell will be competing in a VR race this weekend. While she told Off she won’t be pulling the plug on her husband during the race, she did warn that she would “come up with … some good way to get him back.”