“Last weekend on two legs in a little while”, pro Long-Distance triathlete Imogen Simmonds wrote on Instagram, as she explains she will have to undergo surgery for her hip. “Rather impromptu operation on the hip tomorrow to repair a tear in the labrum and a femoroacetabular impingement, with a few weeks on crutches,” the Swiss athlete explains. “Apparently there’s a reason behind the biomechanical problems we’ve spent the last two years managing, it just took a while to pinpoint it.”
Ever since her training camp on Mallorca, earlier this year, Simmonds struggled with the injury. Even more than she used to. “I couldn’t get the pain under control in a way I normally manage to, so we sent some old MRIs to a hip specialist…one week later, and I’m going in”, Simmonds says, adding the emoticon of a knife.
“Thank you to my amazing team, family and sponsors who are standing by me and supporting me through this tricky time. Onwards and upwards,” she concludes her message.
With only three months to go until the Ironman World Championship in St. George and Simmonds spending much of her time on crutches, her preparation is far from ideal. After two years without an Ironman World Championship, that must be a big disappointment for Simmonds. However, the good thing about 2022 is that there are two world championships, which means that even if Simmonds wouldn’t recover fast enough to race in St. George, she has another chance on Kona.
