Triathlon legend Javier Gomez to retire at the end of the year
A legend in the sport and renowned amongst the triathlon community as a class act, Javier Gomez will retire at the end of 2024
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Ironman 70.3 Mossel Bay
With 10 world titles on his resume, Javier Gomez (pictured above winning Ironman 70.3 Mossel Bay in 2023) has announced that he will be retiring at the end of this season. The Spaniard’s career includes a number of titles over a variety of distances, but over the last few year’s he’s been focussed on longer-distance racing, but has struggled “to to cope with the amount of load that is required to be able to be competitive at the highest level,” he wrote in an instagram post today. “My body has been pushed to its limits for many years and I have had a career that not even in my craziest dreams I could have imagined but I think it’s time to take a step back. I’ll keep doing this amazing sport but with a bit less intensity and stress.”
Gomez won the ITU World Championship in 2008, and would then win the World Triathlon Championship Series four more times (2010, 2013, 2014 and 2015). He won the ITU Long Distance World Championships in 2019 (his countryman Pablo Dapena joked after the race that he was “the first human” to cross the line), and also won the Ironman 70.3 World Championship in 2014 and 2017. In 2018 he was part of the epic race with Jan Frodeno and Alistair Brownlee at the 70.3 worlds, taking bronze behind the two fellow legends of the sport. As if all that isn’t impressive enough, Gomez took the Xterra world title in 2012, showing his versatility with off-road riding, too.
As you can see from some of the highlights below, Gomez was involved in some of the sport’s most memorable finishes, including sprints to the finish line with both Alistair and Jonny Brownlee.
Gomez finished second at his Ironman debut in Cairns in a time of 7:56:38, and would finish 11th at his debut in Kona later that year. He won Ironman Malaysia in 2019, setting a course record at the race in Langkawi of 8:18:59.
This year has been a struggle – he got sick at T100 Miami, had to pull out of T100 Singapore when his mother passed away, and finished 16th at T100 San Francisco. (He won the VI Half Gasteiz in June.) He had to pull out of T100 London due to injury, and is uncertain where he’ll be able to race before the end of the year.
Gomez will go down in history as one of the greatest the sport has ever seen, renowned amongst the triathlon community as a class act and a great person.
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