Published May 15, 2014 04:36PM
Nicola Spirig To Race Marathon At European Championships in August
The Olympic gold medalist will run the marathon at the European Athletic Championships in Zurich on August 16.
Spirig has been triathlon training with coach Brett Sutton for the past few weeks in Cozumel,and competed in a local race during the Taste of Cozumel festival last weekend. Photo: Jené Shaw
Since winning gold in London in 2012, Switzerland’s Nicola Spirig got married, had baby boy Yannis in early 2013, and this past April, she ran her first marathon in Zurich. Her impressive 2:42:52 result earned her a spot to run at the European Athletic Championships, also in Zurich, on August 16.
The 32-year-old didn’t have ideal preparation leading into the race, battling both a bad cold that put her on antibiotics and a stress fracture in her tibia (unfortunately not her first—Spirig has dealt with shin injuries multiple times before). Because she raced under subpar conditions in April, Spirig says she’s looking forward to seeing what she can do on this fall when she’s truly on form.
In addition to the marathon, Spirig will continue to train for triathlon, with her sights still set on an Olympic bid—her fourth—to Rio in 2016. She spent the last few weeks at a training camp in Cozumel, Mexico, with her coach of eight years, Brett Sutton. She’s working with Sutton on starting her own DOVE program (the acronym standing for “We say no to Drugs, Obesity, Violence through Education”), with plans to host five kids races in her home country—two with adult components—starting with the “Nicole Spirig Festival” on June 7–9 in the mountain resort town of Leysin.
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