Anna Noguera

Triathlon provided a welcome solution for Anna Noguera when she faced the quandary of which one of the many sports she liked to take up seriously.

“When I was a child, I used to play a lot of sports, but I never managed to decide on one,” recalls the Spaniard.

“Then I discovered triathlon and finally found the excuse to train all day and not have to choose only one sport.”

Nevertheless, Anna does have her favourites among triathlon’s three disciplines and the one she is not so keen on, with running and cycling falling into the first category and swimming into the latter.

“My favourite is running fast when I am fit or climbing with the bike,” she reveals.

“My least favourite is swimming, because I started to swim late and it is the most challenging for me. Also, swimming alone in the swimming pool can be a bit boring sometimes and I prefer outdoor sports.”

Five-time IRONMAN France winner and six-time Embrunman champion Marcel Zamora has been Anna’s hero ever since she met him about six years ago.

“Not only is he a great athlete and legend, and has won a lot of difficult races, but he is also a super person,” she explains.

It is over the longer distances that Anna has excelled, with wins in the Spanish Championships in 2017 and 2018 preceding her first podium finish on the biggest stage at the ITU Long Distance Triathlon World Championships in 2019, when she finished third at Pontevedra in her home country.

That third place came at a cost though, as Anna explains.

“I had a big injury in the iliotibial band [knee] and despite it being very, very painful, I raced anyway to try to classify for the World Championships. I regret it, because then it became very serious.”