Agnieszka Jerzyk

Agnieszka Jerzyk says she is "always smiling" and no wonder given the triathlon career she has enjoyed so far, with wins across a range of distances from sprint upwards.

She swam as a child before switching to running, so triathlon was always a logical next step. Her first race saw her finish sixth, earning an age-group prize of some bike tyres. She was hooked.

Jerzyk made rapid progress and the highlight of those early years came when she claimed Poland's first-ever medal with a last-gasp sprint to win the ITU U23 World Championship in Beijing in 2011. She had earlier won U23 World Duathlon Championship gold in 2008.

The following year she notched the country's best finish in an Olympic Games triathlon with 25th place in London.

An indication of her versatility came in 2013 when, aged 25 and in amongst her shorter-distance ITU achievements, she also managed to land a first 70.3 title in Lanzarote.

She stuck with the Olympic distance through to the Rio Games in 2016, where she crossed the line in 22nd, but her focus was now starting to shift to the endurance end of the spectrum.

Agnieszka was on the podium at 70.3 South Africa in 2017, but it was in 2018 that she underlined her growing potential with three victories.

First up was 70.3 Taiwan in March, where she put the hammer down on the bike leg to set up a win by just over a minute from American Lesley Smith.

It was altogether closer the following month at 70.3 Liuzhou where it came down to a sprint finish with Imogen Simmonds, just three seconds separating them on the line. And the hat-trick was completed at 70.3 Cascais in September.

In 2019 Jerzyk defended her Liuzhou 70.3 title with an emphatic winning margin of nearly nine minutes, before taking fifth place at The Championship Challenge Samorin.

Now she was ready to tackle the full distance, heading next to the spectacular Challenge Roth where a superb performance saw her finish fourth in 8:48:49 behind Lucy Charles-Barclay and become the first female Polish athlete to break the nine-hour barrier.