Legends of Triathlon – Sheila Taormina – her odyssey to Olympic fame
Sheila Taormina by any stretch of the imagination is an exceptional athlete. Why? Because Taormina is the first women in history to compete in the Olympic Games in 3 different sports: Swimming, Triathlon (twice) and Modern Pentathlon. In addition, to this stunning achievement she also won the ITU World Championships in 2004, has 3 x ITU World Cup wins under her belt and in 2005, won the Aquathlon World Championships.
Sheila Taormina (born March 18, 1969) earned a gold medal as a member of the winning U.S. team in the women’s 4×200-meter freestyle relay at the Atlanta Summer Olympics, USA in 1996. Taormina is an inspiration to all those thinking of quitting when things go wrong as they sometimes will. She was going on 25 years of age and at 5′ 2″ hadn’t made the Olympic teams in 1988 and 1992, but she had a dream and quitting was not part of it. Whilst others did not believe in her and with no performance record to speak of, she persevered as she believed in her own future potential. In the US Olympic swim trials, she made the team by a margin of less than 1/10 of a second, but was enough. But even at that point, never in her wildest dreams did she think that in the next 15 years she’d go on to compete in four Olympic Games in three different sports.
Taormina never intended to become a triathlete; her first triathlon was just a fun competition in Ann Arbor Michigan in the spring of 1998. After her career as an international swimmer came to an end and she took a backseat in the sporting world she gained some pounds and wanted to lose a little weight so did a triathlon for well-being reasons. After 21-years swimming at no time did she make triathlon a sporting priority. That was until Lew Kidder (who was to became her coach) saw her potential and convinced her otherwise. She had a rocky start to triathlon even to the point where she took someone’s else bike out of transition in one race. But she persevered and claimed her first triathlon Olympic spot and competed at the first Olympic triathlon at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia. She took sixth place with a total time of 2:02:45.91. Her split times were 19:02.78 for the swim, 1:06:24.30 for the cycling, and 0:37:18.83 for the run.
The USA – An Olympic Distance Powerhouse?
The American then went on to race at the ITU World Championships in Maderia, Portugal in 2004 which also doubled up as the USA women’s 2004 Olympic qualifier. She won the race and was crowned ITU World Champion and also qualified for the summer Olympic in Athens where she competed in the same year. Suffering from leg cramp on the bike leg she finished in 23rd place with a time of 2:09:21.08
Taormina called time on triathlon and decided to tackle modern pentathlon in hopes of making history by making a fourth Olympic team. After just six months of training, Taormina won the Pan Am Championship in modern pentathlon with a score that would have won the women’s gold in the first two Olympics. She had made the USA Modern Pentathlon team for the Beijing Olympics in 2008. Even though she set a modern pentathlon record Olympic record in the 200-meter swim and was one of four competitors to post a perfect score in the equestrian other events went against her on the day and she finished 19th overall – one spot ahead of the defending Olympic champion.
In 2009, Sheila Taormina became one of the five members of the inaugural class of the USA Triathlon Hall of Fame and in 2019 was inducted into the World Triathlon ITU Hall of Fame.
There is no doubt that Sheila Taormina came a long way from the humble beginnings of her odyssey to Olympic fame. But her journey has been so much more than just a finishing place. Yes, she wanted to win, but her story is more about her human spirit than just her achievements and we should all take heart in that spirit.
