Romain Guillaume

Romain Guillaume’s hero when he was growing up (along with Superman that is) was his dad. Little surprise then that he got into triathlon by copying his father.

It’s a move which has paid off pretty nicely for the Frenchman, who is a multiple winner at both full IRONMAN and middle distances since turning professional in 2010.

Possibly the highlight of his career though was a top-10 finish at the IRONMAN World Championship in Kona in 2014. He also claimed 19th on the Big Island a year later, having been 17th in 2012 after creating quite a stir by leading at one stage.

Other highlights include victories over the full distance at Mont-Tremblant in 2012, Lanzarote in 2014 and Malaysia in 2017.

He was also successful at middle distance at Mont-Tremblant (again in 2012) and South Africa in 2017. In 2019 he claimed victory at the Alpe d’Huez Long Course Triathlon and at Challenge Taiwan.

Rom, as he is also known, says cycling is his favourite triathlon discipline, meanwhile when he’s away from the course he has quite a sweet tooth. He can’t live without chocolate and his cheat meal is crepes.

A fan of cross-country skiing, Romain loves training at Embrun in the French mountains (to prove the point he finished sixth at the Embrunman Triathlon in 2019), and his normal training partners are Cyril Viennot and Arnaud Guilloux.

While triathlon is the toughest of sports, it’s good to see Rom retains a little bit of his childhood. Now in his 30s, he is still sleeping with the blanket he had as a child.

Malaysia has a pretty strong place in his memory also, for not only is it his favourite holiday destination, it was also where he suffered his most painful triathlon moment. Defending his IRONMAN Malaysia title in 2018, he completely blew up and eventually finished his marathon in six hours.

When it comes to training advice, Guillaume says you must “just believe in your dream”, while on race day the mantra has to be “have fun and race how you like!”