Simona Krivankova

Simona Krivankova is one of the Czech Republic’s star triathletes, and has the professional CV to prove it.

It was her boyfriend and now husband Josef Křivánek, a fellow professional triathlete, who convinced Simona to take up the sport in her final year of high school.

She had previously been competing in the long jump and triple jump before making the move into triathlons, over middle and long distance.

One of her proudest achievements came in 2016 when she became the Czech National Champion over the long distance, and arguably she topped that five weeks later in Poznan. Krivankova managed to finish a career-best second in the ETU Challenge Long Distance Triathlon European Championships in Poland.

She has since gone onto plenty of further success, finishing in the top 10 in various IRONMAN and Challenge events, as well as winning the Austria Triathlon in 2018 and finishing second in the same event in Podersdorf two years later.

Simona says that she has a whole host of favourite races, including IRONMAN Malaysia, Klagenfurt and Kalmar as well as Challenge Almere, Salou and Riccione.

Krivankova also says she doesn’t have any specific heroes, instead admiring all the people who have achieved their life goals as well as people who do a job that is also their hobby and something they love to do on a daily basis.

If Krivankova had to only choose one discipline, it would be the run while she admits that swimming element is her “big enemy”.

And finally, if Simona had to give out advice to up-and-coming triathletes, it would be to “race your race, it doesn’t matter what other competitors do”.

She also says: “Be patient, train consistently and recover. Hard training must be hard but an easy one must be easy. Rest days are as important as training days!”