Jodie Robertson

Jodie Robertson only took up triathlon at the age of 30 in 2015, but the American has been making up for lost time ever since.

After winning both her middle-distance age-group triathlons that year - in Quassy and Syracuse - she turned professional in 2016 and marked her debut season by finishing runner-up at IRONMAN Texas and qualifying for the World Championship, where she finished 20th in Kona.

That performance in Hawaii was notable not only for Jodie’s finishing position, but also the physical pain she endured in the process, competing as she did with a broken clavicle.

Texas also provided the highlight of Jodie’s 2017 season as she went one better than 2016 and claimed victory, and she followed up by taking second spot in the same event in 2018.

Until 2015 Jodie had been a marathon runner and was so adept at that discipline that she qualified for the 2012 and 2016 US Olympic marathon trials, as well as finishing fourth in the 2015 US Marathon Championships. But then came the transition to triathlon.

She says: “After many years of being injured as a runner, I decided to sign up for a triathlon as a way to force myself to keep cross training and run fewer miles. I quickly fell in love with triathlon.

“I love running, because it is so simple and you can do it anywhere, and swimming, although it is definitely my weakness.”

Jodie combines triathlon with teaching elementary music to kindergarten children at a school in New Hyde Park, New York, and also coaches girls in the Dream Big running programme.

Robertson has a simple piece of race advice to pass on to triathlon hopefuls, which is quite simply to “control the controllables”.

Meanwhile looking forward towards her legacy one day, she would like it to emphasise the point that “character will last longer than any race result”.