At what tender age did your triathlon career start?

I started my triathlon career at age 18. I had wanted to start a little earlier but my swimming career got in the way for a while. Anyone that knows swimming will know the coaches and parents are extremely protective and don’t often let us stray away from swimming. Swimming was starting to become boring for me, I wanted a new challenge. Triathlon offered me that challenge – I could use my swim skills as a starting point and then work on my bike and run game.

Biggest accomplishments in the three sports?

Biggest accomplishment? In 1998, I won the ELITE SA Sprint, Olympic and Ultra Distance Championships all in the space of nine months. No other athlete had ever held all three titles at the same time within a calendar year. There are others but I don’t want to bore everyone, and this is the biggest!

As a MiWayLife/MiFitLife ambassador- what appealed to you about the product most?

The product appealed to me because its run by a group of sports minded people who understand the sport of triathlon. Then the refund policy on race entries. I actually wasted about R10 000 that was non-refundable on an entry and accommodation because I was injured before a big event. Had I taken the policy prior to this, I would have received all my money back. It’s nice to have a product that is a top-up to my normal family cover that we have in place already. This product is aimed at sportsmen and women like all of us.

Who is your hero?

I don’t have heroes specifically – I respect people but don’t really worship them. If I were to find a hero, anyone who saves an animals life and shows care towards them would be a hero in my books.

Tell us a bit about the 226 event where you are the brains behind and maybe changing something going forward in RSA wrt to new and exciting events on our calendars?

The 226 has been a long time coming – the original idea was to have the 226 on one day making it SA’s second Iron Distance offering but when it became apparent that paperwork and permits would not make this possible, I then took on the three day approach. Same distance but over three days. There are so many generic events in SA and there is only so many athletes that you can attract. I wanted a point of difference. With this format, I am able to make up my own rules – old school rules like when triathlon first started in the eighties. If you want to know more, we sit around the campfire and I can keep the story going for hours!