Last week British Triathlon posted a news article announcing Michelle Dillon’s retirement from the sport of triathlon. After several injury prone years Michelle underwent serious back surgery for a double level fusion of her spine in October of this year. It is well documented that she is recovering well but obviously decided that enough is enough and it’s time to take a step back from competition.

Michelle Dillon came from an international running background and she competed for Australia at the 1994 Commonwealth Games at 21 years of age. Dillon’s Personal best time was 31:40 for the 10,000m but was forced to hang up her spikes a short time later after enduring more than several stress fractures which would keep her from reaching her potential as a runner.

She took up duathlon in 1997 and won the silver medal at the World Championships in only her second attempt at her new sport. A short time after she decided to give triathlon a go and in 1998 she won the European Cup Series in her debut year. The success continued and she won her first ITU World Cup race in Noosa in 1999, the following year she made the British Olympic Team for the Sydney Olympic Games.

In 2001 she won the European Championships in Carlsbad and a year later finished third at the World Championships in Cancun, Mexico. She delighted home crowds with her win at the Salford World Cup in 2004, and later that year finished sixth at the Athens Olympic Games. Dillon was crowned World Duathlon Champion in 2005 and won the prestigious London Triathlon in 2007.

Fear not Michelle Dillon fans, as she will still be very much involved in the sport of triathlon through teamdilloncoaching as the main Director of the coaching team. They offer weekly or monthly raining plans as well as athlete training camps.

Best wishes for the future to Michelle and the team at teamdilloncoaching.

If you liked this article, why not subscribe to TrispaceRSS Feed.

Alternatively, subscribehere to receive the latest Trispace articles by email.

Tags: Triathlon News

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 26th, 2008 at 11:00 am and is filed under Triathlon News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.