Olympic champ takes aim at Edmonton triathlon
Blummenfelt in Edmonton aiming to add world triathlon title to recent win in Tokyo
Kristian Blummenfelt of Norway will be remembered forever in Olympic Games legend and lore for his ultimate moment, part of which, you get the idea, he'd like to forget.
Blummenfelt left an indelible souvenir at the finish line when he collapsed, upchucked and departed in a wheelchair.
To me, it illustrated the extent he was all-in to catch and pass Alex Yee of Great Britain and make it to the finish line to win the triathlon gold for Norway in Tokyo.
You get the idea he'd prefer to focus on the medal presentation and the playing of the anthem and the rest of it. But he said there was a lot involved in what happened at the finish than what met the eye.
Blummenfelt, who will line up on the start line for the swim at 1:50 p.m. as the favourite to win the men's world triathlon championship in Edmonton, tried to explain in a one-on-one interview Wednesday.
“I saw this article from the newspaper nine years earlier where the headline read `Wants to Win Olympic Gold,'” he said of the inspiration he found just before race day.
“I have always been vocal about my ambition and I have always put tons of pressure on myself going into the race. So I think, first of all, it was just extreme relief that I did it. I did what I said I would do when I started with the national program more than 10 years earlier.”
While throwing up on the carpet at the finish line may not be a treasured moment, there were definitely other moments that followed.
He went home to Bergen, on the west coast of Norway in the epicentre of Norway's fiords known as the city of seven mountains, to be embraced by the population of 285,900.
“It was Norway's first Olympic gold medal in nine years and first individual summer medal ever for Bergen,” he said. “My hope is that it makes it a little bit easier for the next generation to believe in themselves and dream big.
“I had a couple of weeks at home and it was huge,” he said of the experience. “It was strange to come back home to Bergen and to find out that suddenly everyone knew about that race. Lots of people were congratulating me. Hopefully, this is the beginning of triathlon interest at home.
“They are currently working on getting an international race in downtown Bergen. For me, to race at home is almost a bigger dream than winning that gold.”
Blummenfelt has his Olympic gold medal and no matter what happens when he dives in the water in Hawrelak Park on Saturday afternoon, nobody will be able to take that away from him. But he's here to double down.
This will be his newspaper clipping saying he wants to be the first to win both an Olympic gold medal and a world triathlon championship the same year.
“I have found myself struggling in the World Triathlon Championship Series for the last three years since I got my bronze medal at the world championships in 2017,” said the Tokyo Olympics gold-medal winner who has already decided he wants to defend his Olympic triathlon title three years from now in Paris.
But there's a more immediate goal.
“My goal since getting that bronze has always been to win this title. So to actually be in a position now with the Olympic title in my pocket and a very good chance to win the WTCS is strange,” Blummenfelt said. “I'm not sure if anyone has ever won both before in the same year.
It would be fantastic to be the first one to do that, if that's the case.”
Well, let's check that out.
The International Triathlon Union confirmed it.
No one, indeed, has done it. Man. Or woman.
What a story it would be if they both did it this Olympic year at the world triathlon championships in Edmonton.
So hello, Kristian Blummenfelt and you, too, Olympic women's gold medal champion Flora Duffy of Bermuda.
Duffy came out of Tokyo as one of the greatest stories in all of Olympic Games history.
Already the Queen of Bermuda, the island nation with a population of 63,918 — making Bergen look like a metropolis by comparison.
Duffy has twice won a World Triathlon Series championship and is now perfectly positioned to make it a hat trick here.
In Tokyo she gave Bermuda the nation's first Olympic gold medal in history and made Bermuda the smallest country population-wise to win gold.
So consider this Part 1 of the potential Triathlon Dynamic Duo setup for Saturday's world triathlon championships at Hawrelak Park and in the North Saskatchewan River valley. Stay tuned for Part 2 up on Flora Duffy next in this space.