"I look forward to compete against a class field in a great setting for one of the greatest purses in the sport. As a family father it is great to see a race combining fun for both the grownups and the little ones in one weekend package." ~ Torbjørn Sindballe

Bio

The Early Years

As a kid I spent a few years swimming competitively before entering my first triathlon back in 1991. It was put on in my home town and at 15 I was pretty young for a triathlete at that, but was quickly drawn by the energy and spirit of the sport. Though out my years as a junior I won a few medals at the Danish junior champs, but was often trailing the best in my category. I lived and breathed as a triathlete, but was rarely as consistent in training as my competitors and often ended up just making the national junior squad as the lowest ranked member.  

In 1996 I took up sports studies at the university and was quickly inspired by the depth of knowledge I had the opportunity to tap in to. I started taking much more interest in training, set very specific goals for everything I did and the results started ticking in. The summer of 1998 was my break through in Denmark and Scandinavia with a 3rd at Danish short course champs(non-draft) and a 2nd at the Nordic short course champs. The same year I was selected to represent Denmark at the Long distance world champs in Japan and despite the classical way to fast bike - dying on the run mistake, I won team silver together with Peter Sandvang and Allan Månsson. 

The Breakthrough

After the experience in Japan I was fired up to take it further and came under the wings of national coach Gabor Klöczl. For the first time in my career I was actually training at elite level and it paid of with an explosive jump up the ladder. In one year I developed form being number 3 in Denmark to winning individual silver at the world long distance champs in the summer 1999. The same year I debuted on the Ironman distance with a Danish record of 8.18.53.

In the following years I was too eager in training and as a consequence I suffered from a string of injuries and it was not until 2002 before I was back in contention internationally. In the spring I won a star studded Half Ironman California, by out running the likes of Craig Alexander, Tim Deboom, Cam Brown and Craig Walton. I was named rookie of the year by Triathlete magazine and in the fall I won my second world championship silver medal in Nice on a not very Viking friendly course.  

The Titles

I opened the 2003 season with great expectations but was once again to eager and ended up overtrained in the spring. After 5 years with Gabor as my coach it was time for a change and my current coach Michael Krüger took over. For the first time I got acquainted with big volume training and won my very first title in August when I won the European long distance champs in dominating style on home soil in Fredericia. Once again I felt on road to eternal stardom, but yet another injury struck. In February I had a serious dysfunction in my pelvis and had to take 9 weeks off from running on a very critical time in the base period. The odds where bad, but after a fantastic 3 months of training I won my first world long distance title in the Swedish town of Säter, where everything begun in 1999.

The following fall I debuted in Hawaii Ironman and with a 6 place finish I had one of the best rookie performances in a long time as well as the best ever performance by a Danish male. The spring of 2005 was probably one of my best so far, if you look at performance in stead of prestige. For the first time I was able to put together a world class performance in all of the three disciplines in the same race. Earlier I had shown tremendous strength in either the bike or run segment, but when I won California half Ironman for the second time I did both in the same race.

Once again I was filled with high hopes when injury struck once more, with a nagging jumpers knee. From May till October I could not run more than 1-2 hours a week and even though I compensated with 4-5 hours of aquajogging every week, I was suffering bad on the run in the October Hawaii showdown. After a blistering bike erasing Thomas Hellriegel's record from 1996, I ran OK for 15 miles before my legmuscles gave up and I had to walk it in. In 2006 I was back training good - too good, since I ended up severely overtrained  in the spring and summer. After a long rest period I resumed training steady in September and put all my focus in to the long distance world champs in November. I came back stronger than ever and won the Ironman 70.3 Australia followed by my second world title.

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