At school, as every child knows, you learn lessons for life. However, it's less widely known that you can also lay the foundations for your future on the journey into school.
But Laura Philipp's development into the world's best extreme triathlete is a story full of unusual twists and turns. And so it is fitting that the Karlsruhe-born athlete still draws on the experiences she once had on her way to the Walldorf School in Wieblingen and back to her home in Lobbach: back then, the sixth-form pupil covered 60 kilometres a day on her bike, going up several hills in the process.
During the hours spent on her mountain bike, the exceptional athlete discovered her passion for pushing herself to the limit, for battling through pain and, above all, learned that physical limits lie far beyond those we usually define for ourselves. Back then, she would never have imagined that 15 years later, she would complete the Ironman in Hawaii and break the world record for the competition. After all, Laura Philipp wasn't even a particularly good swimmer as a teenager; her main concern when in the water was simply to stay afloat: "The only contact I had with water was when I had a shower,'' she says now.
She completed her first triathlon at the age of 24, then her rise to the top of the sport began at an age when most elite athletes are drawing the curtain on their careers. To begin with, she didn't even know the rules of the competition, and her rivals had spent their entire adult lives geared around the demands of competitive triathlon training. Shortly before taking off for the jaw-droppingly beautiful chain of islands, Philipp is back in the Kraichgau.
You can see in every fibre of her being that she is bursting with anticipation for the upcoming competition, which has been cancelled in both the past two years. She laughs, but her eyes are filled with an unmistakable steely intent: Laura Philipp is ready. She is looking forward to the upcoming ordeal, the start of the punishing 3.
