On 24 September 2026, I stood on the start line in Pontevedra, Spain, wearing an Australian tri suit for my first World Triathlon Age Group Championships.
That sentence still feels slightly ridiculous to write.
I haven’t spent my life as an endurance athlete. I only took up rowing and cycling in 2019, and three years ago I couldn’t swim 50 metres without stopping.
Swimming is still, by quite a margin, my weakest discipline. Before Worlds, the longest swim I had ever done in a triathlon was 600 metres. I had never raced 750 metres before, and I was genuinely worried that I might struggle to finish the swim.
Triathlon came later. Over the past couple of years, it gradually became more serious. I started racing more, getting better and, eventually, wondering how far I could take it.
This year gave me an answer.
After a strong Australian season, including age-group wins and a silver medal at the Australian Super Sprint Championships, I was selected for the Australian Age Group Team to race the Sprint World Championships in Pontevedra.
Getting there was a goal in itself. Once I was selected, though, my expectations shifted. I didn’t want simply to turn up and wear the uniform. I wanted to race properly.
The final few weeks weren’t ideal. I became sick shortly before leaving Australia and arrived in Spain wondering how much fitness I had lost. Then the airline lost my bike on the way over, which added a fairly stressful few days to an already nerve-racking trip.
There were plenty of other complications that came with racing overseas: finding somewhere to train, working out how to get myself and my bike to the race, transition logistics and race briefings, and trying not to waste nervous energy worrying about things I couldn’t control.
Then race day arrived.
The Sprint World Championship was a 750 metre swim, 20 kilometre bike and 5 kilometre run. My first job was simply to get through that 750 metre swim. Once I was out of the water and onto the bike, I could finally start doing what I knew I could do.
I had set myself a private goal of finishing in the top half of my 55–59 age group.
I did considerably better than that.
I finished close to the top third of the field in my first World Championships. The bike was my strongest leg: I recorded the 16th-fastest bike split in my age group. I finished the final 5 km run in 24:22, not far outside my 5 km personal best of 23:34 despite everything that had come before it.
There are always things I can pick apart after a race. That is probably part of being an athlete. I can see where I lost time and where I could be better.
But I also know what this race told me.
I wasn’t out of place.
I qualified for Australia, made it to a World Championship start line and raced competitively against women from around the world. At my first World Championships, competing in the 55–59 age group and still relatively new to the sport, that matters to me far more than simply being able to say I went.
Three years ago, I couldn’t swim 50 metres without stopping. In Pontevedra, the first 750 metre race swim of my life was at a World Championship, wearing Australian colours.
I came hoping I might finish in the top half of my age group.
I left having almost made the top third.
And now, inevitably, I’m wondering what I might be capable of next.
Catherine Ashley