63 Year Old Peterborough Athlete Competing In World Triathlon Championship Series In Montreal

Ab Doyle, 63, will compete in Montreal this weekend at the World Triathlon Championship Series in the Sprint Triathlon and The Sprint Mixed Relay.

Doyle, who lived in Northern Ontario working in mining as a Hoisting Engineer says he spent most of his time there playing baseball.

“The mines started closing and people started leaving, so we had to fold the league,” he said.

This left Doyle looking for something else to spend his spare time doing.

“I thought I should try something different. I ran my first triathlon in 2001 and loved it. I’ve done 151 races since then.”

When Doyle retired in 2011 he says he ‘got into racing pretty heavily’.

Since then he has attended the World Championships in Spain (2019) and in The Netherlands (2021) .

The championship hosts athletes aged 15 to over 80 and Doyle says he hopes to compete until he can’t anymore.

“Watching those younger guys, they’re obviously faster,” he said. “My only goal is to not finish last.”

As a curler with The Peterborough Curling Club Doyle’s training takes a back seat during the winter months, during which he is in the gym for about 10 - 12 hours per week.

During the summer he trains for over 15 hours each week.

“It’s quite satisfying,” he said. “It makes you look forward to something. I don’t know what would happen if I stopped.”

On Saturday, Doyle will compete in the Sprint Triathlon which consists of a 750m swim a 20 km bike and a 5 km run.

On Sunday he will compete in the Sprint Mixed Relay, swimming 300m, biking 5km and running 1.5km.

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