Jan Frodeno reflects on tough day at the Ironman European Championship in Hamburg
Champ shows class in his response to tragedy
Photo by:
Kevin Mackinnon
Always a consumate pro, an exhausted Jan Frodeno took some time to do a short interview with us after his race at the Ironman European Championship in Hamburg yesterday. Destroyed from the effort, Frodeno was also reeling from the news that the accident that happened right in front of him on the bike course resulted in a death.
“Days like this – sport is sort of secondary,” he said in answer to a question about how emotional the day had been. “Not to take away from Denis, he had a perfect run and timed it perfectly.”Â
Denis Chevrot defends his Ironman European title. Frodeno fades to fourth
“It was right next to me,” he said of the accident. “It was definitely chaotic out there and unsafe for most.”
Last night the three-time Kona champ posted a poignant post on Instagram after further reflection of what he’d seen during the race.
“There is so much to process from today,” he wrote. “It feels gut wrenching to have seen someone die right next to me and unknowingly continue to race, give it my all and fall well short. My condolences go out to the family of the motorcycle driver who helped cover the race and my best wishes for a full recovery to the oncoming cyclist. Today was a tough day for the Ironman family and I think we’ll all take a while to process it and realise life is precious but very fragile.”
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Despite the emotions of what happened out on the course, Frodeno didn’t want to use that as an excuse for his fourth-place finish.
“I don’t want to blame my performance on any outside factors,” he said. “For some reason or other I just didn’t have it. I had nothing. I was suffering most of the day, trying to pull myself together. I don’t really know why, the last few days have felt really good. I felt great in the warm up … Sporting wise, for me personally, it was a pretty rough day. We’ll just have to go back to the drawing board and see what happens.”Â
