Findlay reveals she’s suffering from anemia
Olympian won’t compete in championship
Paula Findlay has iron- deficiency anemia, a diagnosis that has wiped out her hopes of finishing a hellish year on a high note at the triathlon world championships in New Zealand next month.
Findlay revealed she suffers from the serious, but treatable condition on her personal blog on Tuesday, a little more than a month after she tearfully and apologetically crossed the finish line in last place at the London Olympics on Aug. 4.
That disappointment seemed to be the nadir of a 13- month battle to overcome what was first diagnosed as a minor hip injury she suffered while training in late June 2011. Now this.
“It’s definitely was one of the factors that played into that ( London) race,” Findlay said in a telephone interview from Guelph, Ont. “It’s a little bit comforting, well, not comforting, but to know that there was an actual reason I performed that way.
“It wasn’t because of my injury. My injury was all better.”
The 23- year- old Findlay had her sights set on rebounding with a strong performance in Auckland, N. Z., in late October, and was initially devastated that opportunity won’t be possible now.
“I was really looking forward to kind of redeeming myself a little bit and trying to have another kick at the can and race again,” Findlay said. “It’s just not realistic right now with how I’m feeling and based on these numbers ( iron levels).
“I was training pretty well when I first got here and I just couldn’t consistently train well. I wasn’t having back- to- back good workouts. I would get pretty tired during the days and I thought that was just an accumulation of fatigue from training hard, but it was actually a bigger issue.”
Findlay said the blood test results were “pretty severely low.” She also said she only recently saw the results of blood work done last May, which also revealed low iron levels then, too, although not as acutely low as her most recent test showed.
“I think part of the reason the blood results from last March and May got overlooked was because of this injury and because we were so focused on getting this hip better that we weren’t as focused on the details like this, which may seem like minor details, but they’re actually pretty major details.”
The details of Findlay’s tortured recovery from that “minor” hip injury proved to be catastrophic. An initial MRI test in Edmonton in 2011 showed no structural damage, which led to her resuming training too quickly and intensely.
Having won five World Triathlon Series races dating back to 2010, including the first three elite races in 2011, Findlay had risen to No. 1 in the world rankings.
But since that injury and through on- again, off- again training, multiple diagnoses, more MRIs and a variety of treatment and therapy options, Findlay has only completed three Olympic distance triathlons since June 2011.
Last April, after the hip injury flared up just before she travelled to Australia to begin the 2012 season, Triathlon Canada CEO and then- acting high- performance director, Alan Trivett, effectively shut her down so she could properly heal.
In June, Patrick Kelly, withdrew as her coach, further complicating Findlay’s preparation for London.
Following the Olympics, Findlay relocated from Victoria to Guelph, where she has been training with coach Craig Taylor at one of Triathlon Canada’s regional training centres.
“I was training here with the intention of being here up until worlds. So now I’m not really sure what I’m going to do.”