After ten years at the top of the world triathlon, the 37-year-old from Solothurn has to surrender to an inflammation of the coccyx. Where are her successors?
The question of retirement is an unpleasant companion. It sneaks up on you and then stubbornly stays by your side. Daniela Ryf was asked this question for the first time last summer, out of the blue, when she achieved a world record time over the Ironman distance in Roth: 8:08:21 hours. She thought: “Now you have achieved everything you ever dreamed of in sport,” she said in an interview with the NZZ.
But then came the Ironman World Championships in Hawaii. After that, Ryf would have been able to retire. But she didn’t want to say: “Bye, I’m off.” She decided to share her farewell with the fans and celebrate it for a year. Just like Jan Frodeno, another triathlon legend, had done the previous year.
But Ryf’s strong last season was no longer a reality. The inflammation in her coccyx, which has been hindering her training since the Ironman South Africa in April, did not improve significantly. She had to cancel one race after another; a week ago she gave up, her trainer Brett Sutton and sports doctor Patrik Noack supported her in making her decision. On Monday she announced her retirement with immediate effect.
It is only enough for casual jogging
She will travel to the Ironman World Championships in Nice in September as an ambassador for sponsors; her time as a competitor is over, however. “I feel like an athlete again, but I’m far from being in top shape,” she said on Monday. At the moment, she can only manage a leisurely jog for twenty minutes, three times a week.
So she’s done with triathlon, after ten years at the top of the world in this sport. Daniela Ryf surprisingly finished second in her second Ironman competition, the one in Hawaii in 2014. This was followed by four world championship titles in a row over the Ironman distance (3.8 km swimming, 180 km cycling, 42 km running) between 2015 and 2018. She won her fifth title two years ago in St. George in the US state of Utah. She also triumphed five times at a 70.3 world championship.
The 37-year-old Solothurn native was already a very good short-distance triathlete, but her true strength was revealed in the long format. In her best years, Ryf played with her opponents, especially thanks to her strength on the bike, with which she set personal bests everywhere. She was known for being able to pull off incredibly hard training sessions; in the races, she completed the courses with almost mechanical precision.
Her physical toughness always corresponded with mental strength. For example, she was stung by a jellyfish at the start of the 2018 Ironman Hawaii, but fought through despite the pain and smashed the course record. She was able to successfully hide from the public that she had previously broken her tailbone.
Course record despite jellyfish sting: Daniela Ryf at the 2018 Ironman World Championships in Hawaii.
In the years that followed, winning was no longer so easy for her. The corona pandemic slowed her progress, and Ryf faced new questions in the months without competitions: Who am I if I’m not an athlete? Where do I want to go? She temporarily separated from her coach Brett Sutton, came out as bisexual, and publicly stood up for freedom of sexual orientation.
She was looking for her place in life, with more social contacts, more moments of enjoyment. In the months before a big competition, she always leads “a very lonely life,” she once confessed.
But she still wanted a final year with strong performances as an athlete. “I want to be a winner until the end,” she said in another NZZ interview. Now things have turned out differently, the once invincible has been slowed down by an injury. “It’s difficult to accept that it’s over,” says Ryf in the YouTube video of her farewell. There you can see an athlete with a still steely body, but at the same time one who seems fragile and fights back tears several times.
The video in which Daniela Ryf explains the reasons for her resignation.
The end of a long era of Swiss Ironman success
And what’s next? The Solothurn native has a bachelor’s degree in nutritional science and a number of projects that combine fun and sport – for example “Ride and Wine” or a bike safari. But first she wants to treat herself to some time off, without any pressure.
After Ryf’s retirement, the Swiss Ironman scene became a wasteland. For decades, local athletes were among the world’s elite in long-distance racing. For the women, these were Natascha Badmann, Karin Thürig, Caroline Steffen and Daniela Ryf. For the men, Olivier Bernhard, Christoph Mauch and Ronnie Schildknecht – all of them won several Ironman competitions and made it into the top 6 at least once at the World Championships in Hawaii. Jan van Berkel, for example, also won the Ironman Switzerland four times.
The greatest hope for new international merits now rests on Julie Derron. The Olympic silver medalist in Paris is a short-distance triathlete, but also feels at home on the half Ironman courses; she won the Ironman 70.3 in Rapperswil-Jona this early summer and has already indicated several times that she is also interested in the long format. Since the 27-year-old has been coached by the same trainer as Daniela Ryf for a long time, there is enough know-how in the environment for a career on the long distances.