THE LEGEND
London-born Tim Don, 44, is one of the sport’s most beloved characters. A three-time Olympian, four-time world champion, two-time Ironman 70.3 worlds podium finisher and one of the fastest Ironman athletes in history, he’s also widely known as ‘The Man with the Halo’. The odd moniker stems from his near-fatal accident while training for the 2017 Ironman Worlds in Hawaii. Coming off worst in a bike versus truck collision, Tim broke the C2 vertebra in his neck, which led to the fitting of said ‘halo’, a contraption that literally screwed into Tim’s skull. Four years on, we’re chatting with ‘The Don’ over Zoom from his home in Loughborough… Who better to feature in our 400th issue than the man, the myth, the legend, Tim Don? Tim started his multisport career all the way back in 1992, aged 13, just three years after 220 was born. Here he tells his favourite tri mag – copies of which he still has up in his garage rafters – about those heady days, his thoughts on the current crop of athletes, and some exciting plans for 2022
220: We’re celebrating 400 issues, Tim, and over the years you’ve featured in, and on, a fair few. tim don: Yeah, I was getting the Christmas decorations down and came across one of my boxes of 220. It was 1993. I’ve still got all of them. I think I had my first cover in 1998, I’ve got it framed. When I was younger, the mag was the Holy Grail. You lived for the magazine to come out. You wanted to see who’d done what and where, and wanted to know about the latest technologies. And then as I got a little bit better, I just wanted to be in the mag. It’s just a real staple in our sport.
220: What would you tell 1990s Tim now? TD: Believe in your dreams, try hard, and listen to people who are older and wiser than you. ’Cause you don’t know it all. Also, less is more. When you’re young, you just want to go fast, you want to go further, you want to push yourself. But you see so many talented athletes at the moment, in February they’re flying in and then they’re injured come the season. So yeah, listen to your body and enjoy the journey.
220: In 2017, that truck struck you three days before the Ironman Worlds. How’s the injury now? TD: I’ve always got stiffness there and I don’t have as much mobility through my neck, but it’s manageable. I just need to stay on top of it. I’m sure it’ll get worse but I can’t complain. I think age is slowing me down, not my neck!
220: What are the biggest changes that you’ve seen in the sport over the last 30 years? TD: Everyone’s getting faster, younger. When I got into the sport at 13, I was quite young to be a triathlete. Now, at that age, you’re already a talent ID athlete! My daughter is 11 and when we lived in America she was already doing triathlons. When I was at school, my PE teachers genuinely didn’t know what triathlon was. On a global scale now, it’s just so big. It’s just such a fulfilling sport, you know, everyone on their own journey. It’s