10 Years On – Olympic Triathlon Dream comes True 

In 2011, at the age of 18, having already won a bronze and silver at the Youth Olympic Games, a young American eyed a final appearance at the Junior World Championship, firmly setting his sights on the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.   

Then the young Americans whole world turned upside down where instead of focusing on trying to win the junior world title and gain the Olympic selectors attention for a spot at Rio, Kevin McDowell found himself fighting for his own life to beat cancer. 

While his competitors career took off and made their respective Olympic team for the Rio Games, McDowell’s doctors were injecting him full of cytotoxic drugs after he was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma in 2011.  

Adjusting to a chemo-stricken body was a 10-year roller-coaster. Staying the course and readjusting to the rigors of elite training to rebuild his fitness after a 12-session course of chemotherapy zapped him of his endurance stores. McDowell was to say “I didn’t understand how much the chemotherapy destroyed my body through it all”.  

At certain points in the recuperation process the American did not think he would ever be physiologically and psychologically be ready to return to the elite ranks and was tempted to call it a day on a number of occasions. 

But endurance runs through a triathlete’s veins, none more so than in the case of Kevin McDowell and his body had amazing powers of recuperation. Although he had his competition struggles in 2017, he became the USA Triathlon Elite national champion. 

10 years on from the moment you thought you lost control of your life, McDowell, finally got his opportunity to make his Olympic dream come true being selected by USA Triathlon as one of a five-strong team to head to the Tokyo Olympic Games to take part in the individual and mixed-relay triathlon events. 

 

McDowell was likely the least-known name of the U.S. team of Morgan Person, Taylor Knibb, Katie Zaferes and Summer Rappaport. There are no World Triathlon Series successes on his C.V. and while he has podiums, no wins either on the World Cup series. McDowell was also only the fourth-ranked U.S. athlete on World Triathlon’s Olympic Rankings.  

Despite those statistics, McDowell finished sixth in the individual event (the best ever finishes for an American in men’s triathlon at the Olympics) and then went on to win an Olympic silver medal in the mixed-relay, racing his legs to hand over to Taylor Knibb in an impressive second place just nine seconds behind the flying Brit, Jonathan Brownlee. 

Whilst his résumé can now rightly read: ‘Olympian and silver medallist’, surely the biggest victory in his life must be that he beat cancer.