RACING » SRI LANKA
WONDER
WOMEN
IRONMAN legend Julie Moss
has recently released her book,
Crawl of Fame, which describes
her famous crawl over the Kona
finish line in 1982. Now a Women
For Tri ambassador, she describes
how the programme is building
a community where women can
be seen, heard and supported
through triathlon.
I’ve been fortunate and grateful to
have enjoyed decades in triathlon,
first as a pioneering professional and
now as a 60-64 age grouper.
From the very beginning women
have toed the line with the men,
covered the same distances, been
subjected to the same rules, and for
the most part, received equal prize
money and media representation.
However, women continue to lag
behind the men in race entries across
the board, in all distances of triathlons,
and I’m committed to being part of
the conversation that helps bring
up our numbers. Women For Tri is a
community of diverse women united in
the goal of encouraging more women
into the sport of triathlon.
Being an ambassador for Women
for Tri allows me to travel the world as
part of a community of women who are
chasing big dreams, pushing their limits
and discovering their inner Wonder
Women. At its core, WTF is building a
community where women can be seen,
heard and supported through triathlon.
It was in my role as a Women For Tri
Ambassador that I travelled to Sri Lanka
this past February to participate in
the 2019 IRONMAN 70.3 Colombo. In
82
addition to racing and hosting the WTF
Breakfast, I was also a guest panellist at
a corporate event, the Crawl if you Fall
breakfast, where I witnessed some of
the most powerful women in Sri Lanka
candidly discuss their challenges and
struggles in and outside the corporate
world. They publicly owned their ‘crawl
if you fall’ moment.
It was that same spirit of candour
and vulnerability that was encouraged
and supported for all the women who
attended the complimentary pre-
race WTF Breakfast a few days later.
The women attending quickly came
together to create a safe and nurturing
space to share their own ‘crawl if your
fall’ stories. By sharing our stories,
“WOMEN CAME
TOGETHER TO
SHARE THEIR
‘CRAWL IF YOU
FALL’ STORIES”
our shared vulnerabilities became our
shared strengths. We morphed into
a community of Wonder Women, we
became warriors for our best selves,
and we became friends. We also
uplifted each other as a community
and that energy helped carry us
through some of the toughest sections
of that 70.3 race. The warrior spirit we
women felt at breakfast was reflected
back to us through the bright smiles of
the Sri Lankan people volunteering out
on the course.
It was the same warrior spirit we
created at the IRONMAN 70.3 Colombo
Women for Tri Breakfast that helped
me personally deal with the horror of
the Easter Sunday terrorist attacks.
The attack on the Shangri-La hotel
was only two floors above where our
breakfast was held. In the aftermath
of the tragedy I keep thinking back
to the power of coming together as a
community of women, the same warrior
spirit I saw in the eyes of the Sri Lankan
volunteers, and I know the spirit of Sri
Lanka will heal and soar again.