Riddle’s drive for triathlon perfection

Emulating Henri Schoeman winning SA’s first gold medal of the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, Australia was always going to be a tough act for triathlete Jamie Riddle to follow.

But testing his toughness is Riddle’s daily bread and his sixth spot in the men’s individual event at Birmingham last month belies the 22-year-old’s passion for perfection — and bearing in mind that Schoeman was aged 26 when he won his gold.

The Gqeberha/Stellenbosch-based athlete’s time of 51min 32sec for the 750m swim, 20km cycle and 5km run saw him end less than a minute behind host nation’s winning Alex Yee and 22sec shy of a bronze medal.

He could be excused for feeling frustrated after making so much of the early pace in both the individual and mixed team events (SA finished eighth) but he is already firmly focused on the next goal, as early as this week.

“The overwhelming feeling is pride and as a professional athlete sometimes it’s both the biggest blessing and curse — that searching for/wanting more and you’re always going to be looking for those small areas you can improve on,” says Riddle.

“So my sixth place at the Games was an incredible achievement but obviously looking back now I’m a bit frustrated with one or two things and what ‘could have been’ but can’t take away the pride and taking solace from the fact that even on my worst/or average day I’m able to produce a result that is among the best in the world.”

Riddle says that had he raced differently in the individual race he could have been battling for fourth place and also showed a different side of the athlete that he is.

At this stage of his career he already boasts a powerful swim-biking pedigree but wants to show that he is more than a two-pronged plug.

“I couldn’t quite do that in Birmingham. In the individual race myself and Hayden Wilde [New Zealand] worked incredibly hard and unfortunately Tayler Reid [also New Zealand] wasn’t strong enough to inject enough speed into the breakaway so in hindsight I should maybe have sat up on the bike and saved my legs for the run — unless we’d been able to build a gap of 40 to 45sec with that effort.”

Wise words on young shoulders, as the three runners who went past the South African on the run section had all sat back in the group and saved their legs.

That wise head no doubt comes from dad Alec who was a familiar and medal-winning force on both the triathlon and road running scenes as the young Riddle grew up.

So while there was no medal, there was certainly much media exposure for the youngster. “I got a lot of TV-time and it also showed the world that I wasn’t scared to race and put it all on the line.”

That time in the spotlight will be music to the ears of headline sponsor Entsika Foundation who make it possible to fly the SA flag on the international stage, along with the backing of Under Armour, Garmin, 2xu and Giant.

His next test comes in Slovakia this week in the form of the aquathlon world championships (1km swim/5km bike on Thursday) and long-distance triathlon champs (2km swim, 80km bike, 18km run on Sunday) where his appetite for success will be fed once more, and richly rewarded in terms of prize money.

“After I invested so much [physically, mentally and spiritually] in Birmingham I knew I’d need a new challenge. So I took time off in Barcelona with friends and girlfriend [Nicole Louw, a former SA junior 1,500m champion] and now this challenge will excite me.

“It’s a massive test, on a new time-trial bike which I would only have ridden around 10 times but that’s all good. I may well have a mediocre day but that’s OK, as long as I’m able to compete 100%, it’s all about challenging oneself.”

Putting it bluntly, challenges are what Riddle relies on, having grown up in a competitive sporting environment (he played five sports at provincial level before honing in on triathlon in Grade 10 at Paul Roos) where the idea of pushing one’s body to the absolute limit became the daily norm.

An example can be seen in what a tough week’s training pans out to be as he hunts down an Olympic dream.

That would see him training in excess of 30 hours which would include about 25km of swimming, 400km of cycling and 110km of running. And that would include long runs of up to 30km and bike rides of 120km-140km.

“But it’s more about what’s outside of the actual sport,” he reveals. “It’s the travelling time, the sports massages, watching your nutrition [fuelling], the naps, the sleeping hours ... it’s a 24/7 job.”

So it stands to reason that there’s not much to Riddle that doesn’t involve triathlon, and he wouldn’t have it any other way.

“Triathlon consumes me and I choose it to consume me. The majority of my day is spent thinking about what could be best for my triathlon and how I can be better. I still love to surf a bit, listen to podcasts and chilling with friends and family. My girlfriend’s a runner so we can run together, but honestly, that’s the way I choose it.”

As he eats, drinks, sleeps and lives his daily diet of extreme sport, SA sport will be watching as Riddle’s recipe for success is revealed on the global scene.