Back in the saddle to bag first medal
Hamilton’s Sheldon puts injury behind him
Hamilton athlete Grant Sheldon put a horror crash behind him to take bronze in the ETU Triathlon Sprint Championships in Chateauroux, France.
That was Grant’s first senior medal in the gruelling sport, and it came nine months after an accident while training that saw him come off his bike and break his jaw in two places and fracture his chin, requiring plates and wires to be inserted.
Grant admits he was nervous about getting on a bike again, but said the biggest thing was frustration at not getting to where he wants to be in the sport, which required changes.
He said: “I was pretty happy with my performance this weekend.
“I have felt as though I’ve been in good shape for a little while and just been waiting to execute a race well. It was the first time there has been a European Championship over the sprint distance – it’s usually only standard distance – so to medal at the first one was cool.
“I broke my jaw about nine months ago now and it wiped out most of the winter, but I’ve been training fully since before the new year.
“I was pretty nervous riding my bike for a while after, but I definitely feel over it now. The crash hasn’t really changed my motivation or anything, I guess it gave me the chance to re-evaluate what I was doing and how I was going to get to where I want to be.
“It has been a couple of years, really, since I have done anything of note and that was frustrating me, so I made a few changes which have freshened things up, and that seems to be paying off.”
Grant says strategy was important during the Triathlon Sprint Championships, and that he had to be wary.
He said: “It was well known that the French athletes were going to go for it in the swim and try to get away, so the plan was to swim as quickly as I could to the first turn buoy, and after the swim take it from there, really. I wanted it to come down to a run race. Three French athletes and a Russian managed to get a small gap out of the water, but I wasn’t too far back and a few guys were willing to put in the effort to reel them in.
“I ran out and was running in a group of five, and then managed to break away down the hill with about 800m to go.”
Grant will attend a training camp in Spain next week, which he says will set him up for the second half of the year, and has set his sights on winning the World Under-23 Championships in Mexico in September.
He said: “My ambitions haven’t changed – I still want to be one of the best in the world, and compete for titles at major championships.”