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Qualifying to compete for Great Britain at a major games as a 20-year-old after winning the British 10,000m championships in a stunning time of 27:51, Alex Yee faced a major decision in 2018.
At the time, the Londoner only had a handful of European Cup triathlon races under his belt and was yet to make a big impact at the higher echelons of multi-sport racing, given his horrific crash in his World Triathlon Cup debut in 2017.
However, Yee decided to pursue a career in professional triathlon over athletics, ultimately seeing his perseverance and desire rewarded with a plethora of successes in the world of triathlon.
“That was the thing I loved to do”
During an interview with Adam Leitch at Super League Triathlon, Yee shared his thoughts on the decision and his passion for the sport.
[Photo Credit – Super League Triathlon]
“For me, I started out doing triathlon and that was the thing I loved to do. It’s where I’ve found so many of my good friends, my Dad did duathlon as well and so for me, it’s always been part of my DNA, it’s what I’ve always done.
“I’ve always woken up and I’ll always wake up and want to swim, bike and run and for me that’s fundamentally what I’ll always want to do and what I feel like my purpose is.”
When asked about pursuing athletics in the future, Yee was undecided, focusing on the Paris Olympic Games.
“It’s so hard to know whether that’s even feasible [switching to running]. We’ve seen other athletes do it after Olympic cycles so who knows?
“For me at the moment, I’m all in on Paris and that’s all my focus is on for the next six months, to make sure I cross that finish line and have that peace in my mind that I’ve done absolutely everything I could have done.”
“I understand running”
Yee admits that the swim and bike disciplines haven’t come as easy to him as running, but he’s worked hard to achieve success in all areas of the triathlon.
“I understand running, I think you can see when other people understand swimming or understand biking and people can see when something comes naturally I think and for me, I’ve definitely had to work hard on the other two disciplines to marry them up to a similar level to the running. Starting the sport and going to my first few training sessions as a junior, after doing a couple of different sports growing up,