TRIATHLON: From humble beginnings at the Bunbury Triathlon Club, Ryan and Ash Bailie have reached the international stage.
The pair’s mother Kerry introduced them to triathlons at an early age of 12-years-old.
Now 10 years later they have a base in Wollongong, New South Wales and this year spent five months living in Spain.
Ash and Ryan Bailie were selected by Triathlon Australia, who along with New South Institute of Sport provides training and accommodation.
Training includes nutrition, psychology and physiology as well as the 30-40 hours a week of physical training.
Everything is performance based at Triathlon Australia, as long as you are improving and succeeding they will help you out.
For Ryan it all started when he won the World Championship on the Gold Coast three years ago.
At the age of 16 Ryan had to decide whether to follow the footy path or triathlon and while he said it was a hard decision at the time he does not look back.
“I love the lifestyle of triathlons – you get to travel and meet new people,” he said.
Ryan said the highlight of his career so far was being chosen for the under 23 Australian team.
His younger sister Ash said that was also her highlight from the year.
Ash’s experience at the Worlds was interesting to say the least.
After her swim leg an official stopped her and said she was disqualified for cutting a bouy.
While she was able to go on with the race and protest later, they had her name everywhere saying she was disqualified.
It turned out she was innocent all along and they removed the disqualification, but she won’t receive any compensation for the claim.
“If I was coming second place then maybe, but because I was further back it didn’t matter,” she said.
Ash still came seventh over all.
She said the officials’ apologised to her afterwards, with a referee even calling her up to say sorry.
The committee will now look at how they improve the process so that it does not effect on the race.
The pair are now enjoying a short few weeks in Bunbury before they go back to Wollongong.
Both of them want to work towards competing at the next Olympics in 2016.
