You can’t always get what you want, but as Switzerland’s Daniela Ryf calls time on her incredible triathlon career, there was very little that the ‘Angry Bird‘ didn’t manage to pack in to a quite brilliant two decades of racing.
Ryf, of course, was hoping for a final adieu at the IRONMAN World Championship in Nice next month, but her recovery from injury has prevented her from doing the level of training and preparation required to get back to the top level.
Given that news, I wanted to take the opportunity to reflect on some of the highlights of a truly remarkable career. It’s a palmarès crammed with highlights, but when I look back on the career of Daniela Ryf, for a variety of different reasons, here are my personal picks:
ITU World Championship Series Seoul – 2010
When you put together a list of Daniela Ryf’s ‘Greatest Hits’, the Dextro Energy Triathlon ITU World Championship Series Seoul is likely not one of the first that springs to mind. And not simply because of the extreme length of the event title. Truth be told, Daniela has a hefty back catalogue of brilliance to select from.
Having had several rebrands over the past 15 years, the Seoul event was part of what today is known as the World Triathlon Championship Series (WTCS), the top tier of international draft-legal racing. And it is for that reason, that I open my personal Angry Bird highlights package by recalling this race.
Daniela found her true calling at the longer distances as we all know, but I think it’s well worth remembering that she did not achieve that off the back of being a weak short-course athlete. This race is evidence of that, one that she won on the run. It wasn’t a weak field either, with athletes in the top 10 that day that include two Olympic champions (Emma Snowsill and Nicola Spirig), and a pair of two-time World Triathlon Champions (Emma Moffatt and Helen Jenkins).
Ryf is a double Olympian (with a best of seventh in Beijing), was U23 World Champion in 2008 and was part of the Swiss team that won the first two editions of the Mixed Relay World Championships in 2009 and 2010.
The take-home message? Daniela Ryf has performed across all distances and formats in this sport.
Million Dollar Baby – Triple Crown Series 2015
The sport of Boxing is also known as prize-fighting, with no attempts to hide, deflect or be shy that a significant goal of the combatants is to make as much money as possible when it’s available. While few sports have that financial element so front and centre of the narrative, ultimately professional athletes of all types also need to take those opportunities when they can. Triathletes are no different, even if they aren’t trying to knock each other out…
One such carrot appeared in 2015 with the Nasser Bin Hamad Al Khalifa Triple Crown. Here, a $1million bonus was on offer for an athlete who could win three races in one season – Challenge Dubai (February), the IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship (August, Zell am See) and IRONMAN 70.3 Bahrain (December). Not only did Daniela take all three, but her combined winning margin over the second-place finishers in those three events was more than 25 minutes.
In Austria (her second 70.3 World’s title), she was second out of the water, before setting the fastest bike and run times to cross the line more than 11-and-a-half minutes ahead of Canada’s Heather Wurtele.
As if that wasn’t enough, 2015 was also a year in which she won her first IRONMAN World Championship in Hawaii (by more than 13 minutes), the IRONMAN European Championship in Frankfurt (by more than 10 minutes) and went the entire season unbeaten.
The single most lucrative season of any triathlete in history? I strongly suspect it was.
IRONMAN 70.3 Switzerland 2018
Clearly proud of her home nation, Ryf raced (and won) IRONMAN 70.3 Switzerland eight times between 2014 and 2023. Save for a challenge from Ashleigh Gentle last year, more often than not those were by huge margins. That of itself is not particularly noteworthy, as the Swiss event, in Pro terms at least, is relatively low(er) profile. So why include it here?
Well, I vividly recall reviewing the 2018 edition – my original report is here – and commenting that her performance there was “truly exceptional”. On that day, Ryf finished more than a quarter of an hour faster than Imogen Simmonds in second and more than 18 minutes clear of third-place finisher Skye Moench.
What stood out for me though was that she was just 11 minutes behind men’s winner Josh Amberger. It wasn’t a one-off either, with similar standout performances following soon after that summer in Frankfurt and Gdynia.
“If anyone wants to take the crown away from the ‘Angry Bird’, they are certainly going to need to bring their A-game” was my closing comment on her Kona prospects that year.
Little did we know that Daniela would have to battle other challenges on the Big Island to keep 2018 as another ‘unbeaten’ season. And that’s where I’m heading next.
IRONMAN World Champs 2018 – The Jellyfish
Sometimes it takes overcoming adversity to truly see the best of an athlete. Remember Chrissie Wellington in 2011?
Heading into the IRONMAN World Championship in 2018 – having won in Hawaii in 2015, 2016 and 2017 – Daniela Ryf was the clearest favourite possible. Having added a fourth IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship six weeks earlier, alongside that stunning summer of performances I’ve just outlined, Ryf was perhaps at the absolute peak of her powers.
With Lucy Charles-Barclay now far from under-the-radar having finished second 12 months previously, and Anne Haug making her Kona debut, the competition was not going to hand the title to the Swiss legend, however. That trio of talent had filled the podium slots in Port Elizabeth.
Even on her best possible day, Daniela would never expect to climb the stairs at the Dig Me Beach swim exit close to the heels of Charles-Barclay after 2.4 miles of ocean swimming. Still, losing more than nine minutes was absolutely not in anyone’s predictions. The cause? Just minutes before the start, she had been stung by a jellyfish. Was she now vulnerable? Still seven minutes behind at the Hawi turn on the bike, things were not looking great.
Recalling those summer performances, on the return leg to Kailua-Kona, Ryf unleashed what I referred to at the time as, “one of the most incredible bike sections ever in the history of women’s triathlon”. By T2 she was in the lead, solo, and would start the run with a lead of around 90 seconds over LCB. It was a mind-blowing feat of cycling.
The saying is that it’s “bike for show, run for dough’, but the Swiss star quickly showed that she had what it takes to deliver in both disciplines. A 2:57 marathon was added, and with it – despite that damn jellyfish – a new Kona record by more than 20 minutes.
It would prove to be her final Kona victory – but what a performance it was.
IRONMAN World Champs 2021 – A new home in St George (in 2022!)
Ryf added a fifth IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship title in Nice, France in 2019, cementing her status as the best ever at that distance.
But into 2021, a few cracks in the seemingly invincible Swiss had started to appear, with questions asked whether she could still reach her brilliant heights. Did she still have it?
COVID wiped out racing in 2020, and while there were still plenty of wins in 2021, high-profile disappointment at the inaugural Collins Cup and a distant 11th to a masterclass from Lucy Charles-Barclay at the IRONMAN 70.3 World Champs in St. George, created plenty of chat. After all, previously things were usually pretty simple and required minimal analysis – Daniela races, Daniela wins, end of conversation. Now though, doubts were setting in within the triathlon world.
Taking the highs and lows of sport in her stride, Ryf was able to laugh about it when she spoke to Bob Babbitt:
“It’s actually funny because my godson – I think it was last winter – he introduced me to a friend of his and he would say, ‘yeah, this is my godmother. She used to be good in triathlon’.
With no Kona in 2020 or 2021 due to the global pandemic, the ‘2021’ Championship was actually delayed until May 2022, with St. George, Utah, stepping in as the host venue. Now three-and-a-half years on from that last Kona triumph, was a fifth IRONMAN World Championship title beyond her? Absolutely not! Who better to encapsulate those feelings, than Daniela herself:
“But of course today was very special because it’s been a long time, and I was struggling a lot with lots of things and I definitely felt also some people were doubting me and it was just kind of a little bit of saying like, well, don’t underestimate angry birds because you make her angry.
“Yeah, if I’m angry, I’m really fast.”
Challenge Roth 2023 – Record Breaker
The legendary German event, Challenge Roth, will forever sit as the final professional victory of Daniela Ryf. Topping your final podium, at one of the most iconic races in the sport, with “My best performance ever, a perfect day”, is a pretty cool thing to look back on in that regard. If and when Daniela does take the opportunity to reflect on what she has achieved, there will be lots of great memories.
“Whoever wants to win the race will probably have to break the world record”, was what proved to be a very accurate press conference statement.
It was Ryf who sliced almost 10 minutes from the figures set by Chrissie Wellington at the same event 12 years previously. It was a Daniela at her dominating best, so much so that it would be almost 13 minutes until she got to welcome Anne Haug into second place at the finish.
Chrissie herself was there to welcome her into that iconic finish stadium, and soon after summed up both the performance and the athlete:
“The record was never mine to keep. I treasured it, until the time came that it was broken (or rather, obliterated) by the greatest athlete the sport has ever seen.”
20-plus years in numbers
At 37 years of age, Daniela has already been racing in elite level international competition for more than two decades. While she didn’t get to go out quite the way she wanted on the Côte d’Azur in Nice, France on September 22, it has been a truly spectacular career. And she’s taken the positives in the best possible way:
“Don‘t be sad it’s over. Be happy that it happened! 😁”
Thanks for the memories. Incredibly, the following stats are just a selection from her on-course legacy.
Quite a career – enjoy a well-earned retirement!
- 5x IRONMAN World Champion (2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2021)
- 5x IRONMAN 70.3 World Champion (2014, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2019)
- IRONMAN World Championship silver (2014)
- 2x World Triathlon Mixed Relay World Champion (2009, 2010)
- World Triathlon U23 Champion (2008)
- 3x Challenge Roth winner (2016, 2017, 2023)
- Nasser bin Hamad Triple Crown $1 million winner (2015)
- 2x IRONMAN European Championship winner (2015, 2018)
- 2x IRONMAN North American Championship winner (2019, 2021)
- IRONMAN African Championship winner (2017)
- IRONMAN 70.3 European Championship winner (2014)
- IRONMAN 70.3 Middle East Championship winner (2015)
- IRONMAN 70.3 North American Championship winner (2021)
- World Triathlon ‘WTCS’ winner (Seoul 2010)
- World Triathlon Sprint World Championship (Bronze, 2010)
- 2x European Junior Champion (2004, 2005)
- 8x IRONMAN 70.3 Switzerland winner (2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2021, 2023)
- 4x IRONMAN Switzerland winner (2014, 2016, 2021, 2022)
- 2x Olympian (Beijing 2008, London 2012)
- Collins Cup MVP 2022
