South Wales Triathletes going for gold in Ironman 70.3 World Championships this weekend

South Wales wellbeing clinic, one2one Therapy, is hoping for triple glory this weekend as three of their clients, pro athlete Adam Bowden and age group athletes David Murray & Paul Thomas all head to Nice, France to complete in the Ironman 70.3 World Championships 2019.

one2one Therapy are particularly proud of their athletes’ achievements in qualifying for such a prestigious event, having played an integral part of their preparation and success so far this season.

Rhian Davies, clinic director at one2one says:

“At one2one, we specialize in the assessment & treatment of sporting injuries and we see a high number of triathletes coming through the door. These athletes require a lot of attention throughout the year to keep them injury free and able to perform at their optimum level.”

Adam Bowden

Adam Bowden is a pro athlete who spent many years racing the ITU circuit before swapping his road bike for a time trial bike last year to focus on middle distance racing.

He qualified for the Worlds last year in South Africa finishing in 7^th and aims to better that this year with another year of middle distance racing under his belt. He qualified for the 2019 World Championships when he won Ironman 70.3 Dubai in February.

Adam has finished on the podium in every Ironman 70.3 race so far this year – so he’s hoping for yet another podium finish in Nice. If he does manage to secure the top spot, he will secure his chance to win The Nasser Bin Hamad Triple Crown and it’s million dollar bonus prize when he races in Bahrain in December.

David Murray

Age group athlete David Murray, a site engineer for Jehu construction, grew up in Porthcawl with surfing as his passion.

After starting swimming for fitness at the age of 30, he realised he was pretty good at it so took up surf life saving. When a mate persuaded him to take part in L’Etape du tour de France in 2010, David bought his first bike and triathlon came shortly after.

The Pencoed Tri member has had a lot of success as an age group athlete at both sprint and Olympic distance qualifying for the London Olympic Test event in 2011, the 2012 Olympic distance World Championships, the 2013 European Championships and the 2013 sprint distance World Championships. In 2015, David qualified for the Ironman 70.3 World championships but got disqualified for crossing the white line whilst overtaking on his bike. Undeterred, he went on to qualify for the 2019 World Championships in Weymouth last September.

Paul Thomas

Paul Thomas, a senior engineering manager at Orthoclinical Diagnostics and age group athlete from Maesteg first took up triathlon in 2011 when a friend convinced him to enter Ironman Wales. Since then Paul has completed 13 full distance Ironman events (6 of them in Tenby) which include the 2017 World Championships in Kona, Hawaii. His first Ironman 70.3 event was in Lanzarote last year in which he qualified for the Worlds in Nice.  He has qualified for Kona again this year which is his main focus so Nice will be more of a training weekend for him. Paul is no stranger to high level sport being the Motorcycles Trials Rider Welsh Champion when he was aged 13 and again at age 31. He also played rugby for Maesteg from 1991-96.

The athletes will be accompanied by family members, including one2one physiotherapist Rhian Davies, who will travel to Nice to provide much needed support on the tough hilly course, where temperatures expected to be between 28-30 degrees. However, they won’t be hard to spot – the ‘support team’ of well-wishers from Wales will wear special #Team121 t-shirts, all printed ready for the big day.

South Wales will be cheering them on every step of the way – and our editorial team will be closely following their progress.

Good luck Adam, David and Paul, we’re proud of you!