Daniela Ryf announces her retirement
Swiss star to end her professional career at the end of 2024
Photo by:
Kevin Mackinnon
Switzerland’s Daniela Ryf has announced that this will be her last year of racing. In a post on social media, the five-time Ironman world champion and five-time Ironman 70.3 world champion said that she was both happy and sad to announce that this would be her last year of racing as a pro.
“After 20 years in professional sport, 10 world titles and breaking the world record, I’ve reached more than I ever dreamed of,” Ryf said. “That’s why I am sad and happy to announce that this will be my last season as a professional athlete.”
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Today’s announcement isn’t a total surprise – Ryf indicated last October that it would be her last time racing as a pro in Kona.
“I haven’t decided anything final, but it feels to me that I did reach my potential here, and I also feel that I’ve done what I wanted here,” Ryf said after the race in Kona, where she finished fifth. “I don’t think I’ll be racing here in 2025.” (With Ironman’s new world championship scheduling, the women will be competing in Nice, France, in 2024 and the men will be in Kona. The women return to Kona in 2025.)
At her peak Ryf was pretty much unstoppable in terms of long-distance racing. After finishing second in her debut Kona appearance in 2014 (that year Mirinda Carfrae overcame a 14-minute deficit on the run to take the women’s title), she won in Kona in 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018. She won her first 70.3 world title in 2014, then again in 2015, 2017, 2018 and 2019.
The stats when Ryf was at her best were incredible. In 2014 she “lost” just one race – that runner-up finish to Carfrae in her Kona debut. In 2015 she won every race she entered. In 2016 she pulled out of the Ironman European Championship in Frankfurt because of the freezing temperatures, then won in Roth a week later. That year she had an uncharacteristically “bad” day when she took fourth at the Ironman 70.3 World Championship. In 2017 she took third in an early season race where she was dealing with some injury issues, and third again at an end-of-season event in Bahrain. 2018 was another unbeaten year. And in 2019 there was just one blemish to an otherwise perfect season – another uncharacteristic “bad” day where she finished 13th in Kona.
Things weren’t quite as consistent after the pandemic – but Ryf still posted results that would be the envy of the rest of the world. While she won all but two of her races in 2021, she struggled at the Collins Cup and at the 70.3 worlds. She dominated the Ironman World Championship in St. George, Utah in 2022, seemingly signalling that she was ready to assert her long-distance dominance once again, but struggled later that year again in Kona, finishing eighth. All great results, but Ryf found herself the victim of that previous success – she had been so dominant that her not winning became a big story.
In early 2021 Ryf announced that she was no longer working with long-time coach Brett Sutton (see story above), but would return to the controversial Australian coach last year. While she didn’t get that elusive Kona win, Ryf’s performance at Challenge Roth last year certainly solidified her status at the top of the sport. She shattered the world-best time set in Roth by Chrissie Wellington, finishing the race in 8:08:21.
Farewell tour
Ryf announced her 2024 race schedule today:
- March 9 – T100 Miami
- April 21 – Ironman South Africa
- June 8 – T100 California
- July 27/28 – T100 London
- Sept. 22 – Ironman World Championship Nice
- Oct. 19 – T100 Las Vegas
- Nov. 17 – T100 Dubai
- Nov. 30 – T100 Grand Final
It should certainly be interesting to see how she fares in this final season of racing.
“To one more year of pushing myself to the limit,” Ryf said.
