There is a music to elite triathlon. It starts with the slow spinning of bikes rolling into transition, the crinkle of last minute energy gels being opened, wetsuits being zipped. There’s a nervous slap of a leg, the soft padded footsteps of the jog to the pontoon. Then suddenly, a horn blares.
Percussive arm strokes slap against water. The drum beat of the charge through transition follows, interspersed with the cymbals of clipping helmets. And it only gets louder from there. Brakes screeching. Crowds cheering. Muscles screaming. The music goes in one direction until it reaches its blue carpet crescendo.
The rise begins
For Tilly Offord (AUS), the music was just getting started. In a 2022 season that contained eight of her seventeen individual elite international starts, there was a maiden win at an Oceania Cup. Another promptly followed. Then came a WTCS debut in Montreal, where she finished a respectable 17th. Later on in the year she made a first appearance at the World U23 Championships. Her trajectory was heading upwards and the Paris Olympic Games awaited on the horizon.
“I think 2022 was what's described by the Aussie domestic scene as a breakout season, and I guess it was that,” said Offord. “But I would say it was almost masked earlier by COVID. In 2020, 2021, when I was finishing off my university degree, I was shielded from the world of triathlon, just because we weren't able to leave the country. So I just had my head down working hard. When 2022 came about, I was so excited to be racing and I guess delivering on where my coaches at the time were saying that I can definitely be racing at that high level.”
“One of my first senior races on the world stage was WTCS Montreal, which was awesome. I do remember looking left and right and I had Beth Potter and Georgia Taylor-Brown on either side and it was a bit of a ‘pinch me’ moment. My fondest memory is definitely finishing that race and just being hungrier for the next few years.”
“Unfortunately, at U23 Worlds I was sick but I just wanted to start. That year just hinted to me that, potentially, I could be on the Aussie Olympic team. And I think that was an important thing for me to recognise early because I was at a point where I was like, is this triathlon thing for me? Or do I want to go and pursue a career and stuff like that?”
Like any good earworm, the music of triathlon had lodged itself in her head. And then, nothing.
The crash
19th February 2023. The day of the accident.
“So it was literally a week before flying out to Taupo, which was the first race of the Oceania season. In fact, I was flying out the next day. And it was just a normal aerobic ride. I had a long run in the morning as usual, and I was just going down a normal hill and a distracted driver went through a give way sign and I hurled through his windshield at about 65 kilometres an hour. No wrongdoing of my own. The driver just went straight through the give way.”
“I have no recollection of the accident beyond that point. From what I've been told, ambulances were immediately on the scene. I was taken to a big hospital in New South Wales and basically was then in the world of starting to understand what injuries I had, from head injuries to broken jaws to broken pelvises. I lost a lot of my quadricep muscle. I broke most of my toes, most of my fingers. So quite literally, I had injuries from head to toe.”
“Early on, I think I was very unaware of how long this rehab would take. So I was a bit naive and I was like, ‘I'll just be back by the end of the year’.” Offord smiled at the memory, her ability to do so a feat scarcely comprehensible. Yet an ostensibly impossible journey was only just beginning.
The long way back
“I was obviously in hospital for quite a lengthy period of time. I was actually sent home earlier under the guise of being told I would have four months of bed rest. So the only time I would be able to get up would be: I'd be hoisted out of bed and wheeled to the toilet and then back to bed. For four straight months. I also had a significant head injury, which I still have to this day, so that meant I had to be in a darkened room with no screens and no prolonged social interactions. So I spent about 22 hours a day just looking at the ceiling. That was something else that I could have never anticipated. It just takes time to heal.”
“I had seven early surgeries in my first hospital stay. But if we fast forward a year and a half on from the initial accident, I then underwent another two jaw surgeries, another two hand surgeries, and another two hip surgeries. So the rehab has been unrelenting.”
“For me, the physical side has actually been the easiest part. The mental side from the perspective of patience and having no control whatsoever over the healing timeline has been the most difficult component.”
“I've learned over probably around one and a half years that I have no control over how long things will take or the course of the rehab or what treatment I actually need. All I can control is my attitude, and when I did start to view this as, I guess an opportunity to learn, an opportunity to grow, it didn't remove the frustration and the heartbreak that you feel, but it did allow me to see this with a fresh lens.”
Two sides of a coin
It is an uncomfortable truth that the narrative of the horror bike crash in triathlon is all too common. One of the defining stories in the sport last year was the return of Hayden Wilde from a collision in Tokyo. In an extraordinary turnaround, he was back winning in the T100 within 100 days and went on to claim the championship title. Equally, for every miraculous comeback tale like Wilde’s, there is a story like Offord’s in which the light at the end of the tunnel seems incredibly, almost cruelly, distant.
“That's probably one of the hardest things. At the time I was training at the New South Wales Centre, Emma Jeffcoat (AUS) was having a bit of a rough patch with injuries. I think I'd probably just started walking, so it probably been about eight months since my accident, and Emma was just starting a return to running, and I remember Emma saying, ‘we’re going to do this together!’. And that's with no malice or anything like that. But I remember feeling so ripped off when I saw her on a start line and I still hadn't even started running.”
“With Hayden, he’s done a tremendous job rehabbing and I love that he's been able to do it in such a fast way. I say fast, but he probably thought it took ages! But yeah, there is the other side of the coin. And we just had very different injuries and I guess, in my context, a broken pelvis is very debilitating. There's not much you can do there for months.”
“So I think for me, I just had to trust in my own timeline and honestly, I've had a world class team around me from the New South Wales Institute of Sports. They have honestly kept the faith. And when I do have those flat days, they're like, ‘come on, you know what you're working for’. So I'm really grateful for that, along with family and friends.”
The experiences of Offord, Wilde and too many more make for sobering reading for triathletes, and indeed those on the road, everywhere. “I think it's an important message to get out there that we aren't invincible, not that we think we are. What we do is risky and we are at the mercy of a lot of drivers. Unfortunately, it's the harsh reality of our sport.”
A mountain climbed, a mountain to come
This article, however, is not about Offord’s crash. Nor is it simply about a journey back that is agonising and inspiring to hear in equal measure. Rather, having defied the odds, it is about what is to come. At long last, she finds herself on the precipice of returning to international action.
“It feels like I'm in a bit of a dream at the moment, the fact that I'm swim, bike and running at a full load, because it's honestly been years of dreaming of doing that again. So it'll be really exciting to kick off the season. I'll probably miss most of the Aussie season just because it's a bit too soon. But we'll obviously head over to Europe for the majority of the season and we'll hopefully be there at the end of the season.”
At times, the sport can feel like a whirlwind. The Paris Olympics for which Offord was denied the chance to strive came and went with alarming speed. Yet the dash to LA 2028 is already set to start. And this is a path Offord fully intends to pursue.
The breakneck nature of the calendar, though, pales in comparison to her own recent history. Offord only learned to walk again a year and a half ago. To go from that to being on the verge of a start line must be dizzying.
“I'll start racing again this year, but the goal for this year is to race, enjoy it, have fun and just get back into the rhythm of swim-bike-run consistently and injury-free. But like any elite athlete, I'm competitive and I want to win and I want to be up there with the best of them. So it's balancing those expectations with the injury expectations.”
“This year is also about working through PTSD and a fear of having another bike accident and coming down in a pack. So I think that's also something that this year is really important for. It's just getting that confidence back and enjoying bike-riding because it's definitely a love-hate relationship at the moment.”
“And then moving into next year there’s a performance focus. I have zero points on my world triathlon profile. So there’s accruing some points and also asserting myself as one of the strongest Aussies again so I can have my hat in the ring for LA.”
A newfound strength
There is a kind of relentless optimism that radiates from Offord. Indeed, one her of most impressive qualities is how she has taken positives from her frankly mind-boggling experience, turning a nightmare into a source of strength.
“An example that is so applicable is with the head injury,” she explained. “I was capped to about 15 minutes of concentration a day for about a year and a half. That was actually really difficult. Concentration could be watching a movie, it depends on how hard the movie is. Being able to mitigate stuff like that, but then still being able to do your exercises every hour, still be able to view things in a positive light, still be able to pivot and be adaptable, they’re things that I actually couldn't have learnt while racing elite triathlon. And I think I've learned it a very hard way, but it's so transferrable.”
“I get asked the question all the time. If I had the choice to not go on that ride on 19th February, would I take it? And on the whole I would have to say I wouldn't change a thing about the last almost-three years. Although, I'd love to remove the pain. But there’s been a lot of good from the perspective of everything I've learned, the people that have been around me, the performance behaviours and how regimented I've had to be, as well as the opportunities that have arisen in regards to advocating for PTSD, post-concussion syndrome, and just injuries in general with junior athletes.”
“Most importantly, my love for the sport has absolutely increased tenfold. So I think I really hope when I do return not only will those skills shine through, but just this gratitude and love for this sport, because I think in elite sport, that can sometimes get lost.”
The music on the horizon
Offord’s first race back will be at the Kitzbuehel Europe Cup in June. Thereafter, her hope is to tackle the World Cups at the tail end of the season, specifically Rome and the Asian swing. To even be at this point, however, is an astonishing achievement. The excitement visibly emanates from her and it is not hard to figure out why.
You likely won’t see Tilly Offord‘s name on the world stage until the end of the season. But make no mistake, hers is one of triathlon’s best stories of the year. After so long away, she is about to hear the music again and there will be two notes in particular that few among us can understand. We will hear Tilly Offord’s name read out as she takes her place on the start line. She will hear two words altogether more incredible.
You’re back.
