Morten Brammer

Only one thing scares Dane Morten Brammer - waking up and not being able to smell the coffee. Thankfully he’s seldom out of beans, so he says ‘Grumpy Morten’ doesn’t appear very often!

The former golf instructor discovered his love of triathlon when teaching at Club La Santa in Lanzarote. He was immediately hooked.

Morten claims he has never shown any great athletic prowess, so he puts his progression as a triathlete down to years of intense hard work. That all paid off in 2019 when he finished fourth at both IRONMAN Kalmar and IRONMAN Lanzarote, as well as Challenge Herning.

That Lanzarote fourth was a sweet moment for the man from Aarhus, back at the place he both discovered his love triathlon and took part in his first full-distance race a decade earlier. Not surprisingly it is his favourite event now.

Away from the course, Brammer admits to being a little too fond of chocolate and as a huge fan of DIsney and Pixar animation movies he counts Buzz Lightyear among his heroes. Along with golfers Tiger Woods and Adam Scott, and his dad.

Back on the topic of triathlon, Morten has great respect for the likes of Kristian Hogenhaug (“humble, talented guys”) while he loves to train in Aarhus in the summer and Lanzarote or Gran Canaria in winter.

One thing Brammer is surprised by, as he says he is “quite an awkward person”, is that he hasn’t suffered any majorly embarrassing tri moments yet. While in terms of pain he plumps for the bike leg at Challenge Almere-Amsterdam in 2019, explaining: “I had to chase the front pack all by myself”.

Morten enjoys all of the triathlon disciplines as they complement each other so well, and says the best race advice he’s been given is: “Believe in yourself. You can do more than you think you can”.

As well as enjoying his triathlon career to the full, Brammer also has an inspiring day job, helping to develop young talent with the Danish Athletics Federation.