Daniela Bleymehl

There can be few more memorable triathlon finishes than the battle between Daniela Bleymehl (then Sämmler) and Lucy Charles-Barclay at Challenge Roth in 2018.

Charles-Barclay had been the overwhelming favourite beforehand. She was unbeaten that year and utterly dominant in the swim, on that day coming out of the water with an advantage of eight minutes over Bieymehl.

But Dani, as she’s also known, produced the fastest bike split to halve the deficit by the start of the run. And she continued to whittle down the advantage, to the point where she moved past her rival at the final turnaround in Büchenbach.

But still, the drama wasn't over as the two were locked together for the closing kilometres heading back to Roth and just nine seconds separated them as they collapsed over the finish line after an epic duel which went the way of Bleymehl.

"You never get a 100% perfect race, but that was pretty close! My whole family was there too, so it was pretty special," she remembers.

As the only German pro on the female startlist and in front of a quarter-of-a-million fans, it was a career-defining day.

The journey to it had all started when Dani took part in her first kids' triathlon aged just 11. Growing up in Heppenheim, just south of Frankfurt, she was competitive from an early age.

"I'd done a lot of swimming from nine years old, but after that first triathlon, it became my big passion straight away."

But it wouldn't be until she was 23, in 2012, that she would take part in her first pro event - 20 months after her son Marlon was born.

Unfinished business at Kona

Daniela was part of the ERDINGER Alkoholfrei junior team and hoping to graduate to the professional squad, but things were put on hold after the birth of her first child.

So in 2012, she tried what she labels an "experiment" of seeing whether she could do triathlon as a pro.

And the answer was clearly in the affirmative as she came home third in her very first long-distance event at Challenge Barcelona and moved to the pro team, where she's been ever since.

She has notched multiple wins at full distance, five at 70.3 and also made the top 10 for the first time at the IRONMAN World Championship in Kona in 2019.

Her maiden IRONMAN victory came at Mallorca in 2015 when she won by seven minutes from Great Britain's Emma-Kate Lidbury - "It was a special day - I couldn't believe it until the last kilometre."

And that meant a first appearance at the World Championships in Kona the following year. It's fair to say that didn't go to plan though.

When asked what's the most pain she's ever been in during a race, she has no hesitation in nominating that day in Hawaii: "I walked the last hour in pain and ended up in hospital with suspected appendicitis after the race. "

But there was no way she was going to quit on her debut on the biggest stage - and she was soon back to winning form in 2017 when she dominated the first-ever edition of IRONMAN Hamburg.

She was first out of the water, easily quickest on the bike and then added a 3:08 marathon to triumph by over 15 minutes.

But even as a two-time IRONMAN winner and after a solid build-up to the race, she was still among the outsiders for Challenge Roth in 2018 as she looked to become the first home female winner since Nicole Leder in 2004.

She was eight minutes behind Charles-Barclay after the swim but stuck to the gameplan, reducing the deficit on the bike to give herself a chance, especially as he running was improving all the time.

The gap was down to 43 seconds after 30km, and the catch came at 40km before an absorbing battle all the way to the line.

It was a thrilling finale and as well as the landmark win, she also broke the German full-distance record.

Dani then capped her most successful season thus far with her fourth full-distance win at Emilia-Romagna in IRONMAN Italy, booking a 2019 slot at Kona in the process.

If 2018 was all about her long-distance wins, 2019 saw her rattle off a string of middle-distance victories - Challenge Salou, Challenge Heilbronn and Challenge Geraardsbergen - as well as an eventful third at The Championship.

Describing herself at that point as "being in the best shape of my life", the focus was then fully on the IRONMAN European Championship, Frankfurt, to see if she could add to her success at Challenge Roth 12 months earlier.

But those plans were derailed as she explains: "Mentally, it was the toughest decision of my career not to finish that race.

"It was my home race, and it was supposed to become a very big day.

"But I had suffered from a gastrointestinal infection the week before the race and felt so weak right from the start. It just didn't make sense to finish."

But the call to DNF after the bike allowed her to turn a negative experience into a positive one as she made a late decision to defend her Challenge Roth title just a week later.

In the circumstances, it was an astonishing performance back at Roth as she took third place (behind Charles-Barclay this time) in a time 26 seconds quicker than the previous year.

Her first IRONMAN-branded 70.3 victory came in Zell Am See in September which meant she headed back to Kona full of confidence. And her second visit to the Big Island was in stark contrast to her first as she cracked the top 10.

Crossing the line in ninth, she admitted she was able to make her "peace" with the event by banishing those painful 2016 memories.

Coming full circle

Performing well at Kona was all the more rewarding for Daniela as it's an event her father was due to take part in in 1988 after qualifying at Age Group level. But she was born that August - and he never made it to the Big Island.

Growing up, she says her parents were her heroes, and now she has a child of her own in Marlon: "I want my children to be proud of their mum and to be sure that they can do and become whatever they want."

Having a family gives her an added dimension alongside the sport, and she's coached herself to provide maximum flexibility with her training.

But that changed at the end of 2019, with Mario Schmidt-Wendling coming on board, and she's looking forward to racing being able to resume: "'Consistency is the key' is what he's been repeating to me in training - and I'm excited to see the results."