Karen Smyers

0 Karen Smyers
Personal information
Date of birth	1st September 1961 (age 58)
place of birth	Corry, Pennsylvania, USA
societies
successes
1990, 1995	2 × ITU world champion triathlon short distance
1990-2001	7 × national champion triathlon short distance
1995	Winner of the Ironman World Championships
1996	ITU world champion triathlon long distance
status
resigned

Karen Smyers (born September 1, 1961 in Corry , Pennsylvania ) is a former American triathlete . She is seven-time national champion (1990-2001), two-time world champion in the triathlon short distance (1990, 1995) and the long distance (1996) and in 1995 she won the Ironman Hawaii .

Career

Smyers grew up in Wethersfield , Connecticut and was an active swimmer in her teens. In 1984 she competed in her first triathlon.

World champion triathlon short distance 1990

In 1990 she was the first time triathlon world champion on the short distance. In June 1994 at the first official long-distance triathlon world championships as part of the Triathlon International de Nice , she was runner- up behind Isabelle Mouthon-Michelly 's world champion.

In March 1995 she won the triathlon in the Pan American Games (Olympic distance: 1.5 km swimming, 40 km cycling and 10 km running).

Winner Ironman Hawaii 1995

In 1995, just two weeks after her victory at the prestigious Ironman Hawaii in Mexico, she was able to win the World Championship on the Olympic distance for the second time, which was contested here for the first time with official drafting approval (slipstream driving). The following year she won the 1996 World Triathlon World Championship of the International Triathlon Union (ITU). She achieved seven US triathlon titles and one duathlon.

Private

Karen Smyers is married to screenwriter Michael King and they live in Lincoln, Massachusetts. Today Smyers also works as a coach and trains z. B. the professional triathlete Dede Griesbauer .

Awards

• In 2008 she was honored as the first woman for her successes by the US Triathlon Association in the newly established Hall of Fame of the triathlon .
• Karen Smyers was inducted into the ITU Hall of Fame in 2014 in recognition of her athletic achievements .

Sporting successes

(DNF - Did Not Finish )

Web links

• Official website of Karen Smyers (English)
• Karen Smyers in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely accessible)
• Profile for Karen Smyers at the Institute for Applied Exercise Science , accessed May 26, 2015
• Profile and results of Karen Smyers in the ITU database at Triathlon.org , accessed on July 19, 2020 (English).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ A few thoughts from Karen Smyers, Hall of Fame
2. ↑ USA Triathlon Hall of Fame In triathlon.org October 2, 2008
3. ↑ ITU Hall of Fame Inductees 2014