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Charlotte Amalie
Thursday, March 28, 2024
HomeNewsArchivesUNSTOPPABLE TRIATHLETE LOOKING TO REPEAT

UNSTOPPABLE TRIATHLETE LOOKING TO REPEAT

The cold beer Karen Smyers is swigging three days before the St. Croix International Triathlon immediately blows away the image that she is a stand-offish, world-class triathlete machine.
While Smyers has won the St. Croix race five times, is an U.S. Olympic hopeful, won a gold medal at the Pan Am Games and is the only woman ever to win the world championship and the Hawaii Ironman in the same year, the 38-year-old Boston resident is anything but an emotionless training automaton.
Between sips of her Bud, the mother of a 3-year-old daughter openly recalls the calamities that prove she is very human and, despite being able to swim two miles, bike 100 and run a marathon — all in the same day, somewhat fragile.
Like most elite athletes, she has the stats: Karen Smyers, the U.S. Olympic Committee's Female Triathlete of the Year in 1999; winner of the 1995 Hawaii Ironman and second-place finisher in 1999; six-time national champion; and winner of countless races in her 16-year career.
Then there are the things Smyers would probably rather not be known for but that give a true assessment of her guts and determination to succeed: a diagnosis of thyroid cancer last December; a mishap with a broken window pane in 1997 that severed a hamstring muscle; a tangle with an 18-wheeler in August of 1998 that left her with six broken ribs and a separated shoulder; and a crash in the last race of 1999 that broke her collarbone.
And, while not as traumatic as those other events, she gave birth to Jenna in May of 1998, an event that forced her to miss the St. Croix race.
"The thyroid thing was more of an emotional thing," she says. "It makes you do a little soul searching."
Smyers was actually informed that it was possible she had thyroid cancer just days before competing in last year’s Ironman race in November. She finished second in what is arguably the most grueling athletic event in the world.
After the diagnosis was confirmed in December, Smyers underwent surgery to remove her thyroid gland. With the triathlon making its Olympic debut in Sydney this summer, she and her husband Michael decided to postpone her follow-up radioactive iodine treatments until after the last Olympic qualifying race in Dallas at the end of May.
"For the most part, I’ve put it on the back burner," she says of the looming cancer treatments. "But it’s kind of scary knowing you have this thing inside you."
The biggest set-back of them all, Smyers says, was her crash in Ixtapa, Mexico, late last year that broke her collarbone. Because of her earlier injuries and the birth of her daughter, she has been forced to take lot of time off in the last three years. She had intended to devote the 1999-2000 winter season to training for world cup races in April and Olympic qualifying in May. Instead, she greeted the new millennium unable to hold her arm above her head.
"I envisioned starting the year 'way up and then building to a crescendo," she recalls. "But at the end of December, I literally couldn’t do a stroke."
Five months later, though, Smyers is again the favorite to win Sunday’s St. Croix International Triathlon. She won the event five times in the 1990s and is looking at this year’s race as a tune-up for the last Olympic qualifier at the end of the month.
"It’s an event I love to come to because of the atmosphere," she says, "and the race isn’t so cutthroat. But it will be a strong field."
Is she shooting to repeat her victory of last year? Smyers takes a pull from her beer, smiles and gives an enthusiastic "Oh, yeah!"
For more on the St. Croix International Triathlon,click here.

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