Just one month on from her retirement from professional cycling, Imogen Cotter has won an Olympic distance triathlon, on her first attempt.
Having signed up to the Lough Cutra Castle race just as something to “work and train towards”, the 2021 National Road Race Champion came out on top at the event on Sunday, in which she had to complete a 1.5km swim, a 40km cycle and a 10km run.
“I feel great after the race, I kind of went into it with no expectations of myself and no pressure. I think I had enough pressure during my cycling career, now I just want to enjoy competing,” she told Triathlon Ireland after crossing the finish line.
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“I didn’t really know what to expect, I didn’t know how the swim was going to go and I surprised myself with that. The bike is obviously second nature to me and I know a lot of the roads, but the run was incredibly difficult, I didn’t realise how technical it was going to be,” she says.
“I have a really bad knee injury so I find technical trail running quite difficult, but I got through it, I survived, I got to the end and I won, so happy days,” she laughs.
Even as a standalone, the achievement is phenomenal, but it’s made all the more remarkable given the 30 year old continues to battle with a prolonged injury that she picked up during a major accident in Girona, Spain, just over two years ago.
There, Cotter was engaging in some pre-season training when she was hit head on by a van, in a traumatic incident which she has since recalled with the Road Safety Authority Ireland.
“The day of my crash I was coming towards the end of my ride, probably like 15 minutes from home,” she begins.
“I saw a white van coming behind this cyclist, and I could see that he was beginning to overtake them. I was thinking ‘what’s he doing, like he doesn't have enough time to do this’ and I just remember seeing this white van coming at me and just thinking that I was about to die,” she says.
“I just hit the windscreen really, really hard. I hit the bonnet first with my knee and then went up into the air and I hit the windscreen.”
Cotter remembers how at the scene of the accident, both the witness and the emergency services were telling her not to look at her knee, and how her parents were contacted to tell them about what had happened.
“When I woke up my leg was in a full cast…it was only maybe a week later that I got my first glimpse at my knee,” she says.
“I had 40 metal staples in my knee and I also ended up getting maybe 20 or 30 in my wrist and they looked so gruesome.
“I kept imagining myself at the side of the road, just dying, like my life just ending there, and for what? It just felt so unfair.”
Partaking in the video in the hopes that it might get someone to “slow down and see the impact that it has”, she hopes that what happened to her “can be a lesson to someone at home.”
“People need to realise there’s a life behind the cyclist you see on the road...they’re people, they have their whole lives, and goals and people that they love,” she says.
“If this can just make one person slow down, that’s what I think the goodness that can come out of this situation is.”
Imogen Cotter retires from professional cycling
In April Imogen Cotter announced her retirement from professional cycling after five years, posting a full update on her blog. Imogen Cotter . com , weeks later.
In it, she spoke of her want for a “fairy tale ending”, and how she realised “after many hard discussions, tears and sleepless nights” that perhaps this wasn’t to come in the form of her “coming back and winning races and becoming national champion again.”
“Maybe the fairy tale is the fact that I got to live my dream of being a professional athlete, that I grabbed every opportunity given to me with both hands, that I am still able to ride my bike, and that I learnt more about myself in this time than the ‘real world’ could ever have taught me,” she says.
She also spoke of the sympathy people often feel for athletes who are forced to retire early, but that she now has a changed perspective on the matter.
“I am forever grateful to cycling, but I also know that there is so much ahead of me to look forward to and work towards. Maybe a job that doesn’t terrify me is just the beginning of that! I always felt a bit sorry for pros who retire. Like wow, their lives must feel a bit aimless now. I was so wrong! I feel excited and driven for what’s next,” she says.
“I hope you’ll still stick around for the next chapter.”
If her adventure over the weekend is anything to go by, there’s no doubt she’ll continue to have plenty of support along that journey.
