Courtney’s golden spur
IT was the race that reignited Courtney Hancock’s career.
Without a major title for two years and having missed automatic requalification for the Nutri-Grain ironwoman series for the first time in her career, Hancock put six months of blood, sweat, and ultimately tears of joy on the line to win the torturous Coolangatta Gold last October to kickstart a strong season.
With confidence back and at peak fitness after months of gruelling training, Hancock just missed a fourth NutriGrain title and headed to the Australian titles among the favourites for the ironwoman.
But with Cyclone Debbie forcing officials to call off the final days of the Aussies without running the blue riband ironman and ironwoman finals and question marks hanging over the status of the NutriGrain series until news of the rejigged Ocean6 format, Hancock has again turned to the Gold to start her run.
“I would’ve loved to have come away with the series and it was really unfortunate that I couldn’t win that last round,” Hancock said.
“I was very disappointed. “But looking at it as an athlete, that’s a good thing because if you’re so disappointed it means you really care and I really care about the NutriGrain series and so for me, I focused then on Aussies.
“(To have that called off) was shattering for a lot of people but I know there’s always people off worse, so I really felt for the under-19s because they don’t get their last shot as an under-19 to win an ironwoman or an ironman. I think with Aussies being shut down, that really made me want to do the Gold again.”
Hancock will be attempting back-to-back Gold campaigns for the first time but hopes to be finish strong on Sunday.
“I think it’s been hard for people to do it every year just because of commitments like the world titles and the NutriGrain series and it is a hard race,” she said of the 41.8km torture test.
“You have to be so dedicated. You have to give away those Saturday nights … there might be weddings, there might be all sorts of things and you can’t really travel much.
“So it’s hard as you get older because there’s lots of exciting things happening and all your friends and family’s lives and you’ve got to give away that.
“So the people who are willing to give that up for a little while are the ones that are going to be on the start line.
“I think a lot of the people watched the races last year and I know what it’s like sitting back and watching, you see people race and you think; ‘I want to be a part of that’.”