There could be no better way for GB pro triathlete Kat Mathews to make her comeback. In her own words, the Army physio is determined to "stick two fingers up" to what happened in Texas in September - by returning to the Lone Star State in May to try and qualify for the Big Island once more.
Matthews' bike crash in Montgomery County, blindsided by a motorist who turned directly across her path, was life-threatening. That she'd finished second in the Ironman World Championship in Utah in May, and was in the final throes of training for her Hawaii debut, was inconsequential. Messages from the triathlon world poured in, just wanting her to be okay.
Thankfully, as she flies past in the Derby Velodrome, barely breaking sweat when generating Ironman power, she's looking more than okay. This might not be the Kat Matthews Version 2022 who stopped an iron-distance clock in 7:31:54 in Germany in June, but with a few battle scars notwithstanding, she's heading in that direction.
"My favourite word at the moment is turbulent," Matthews says. Having interviewed the 32-year-old several times, I've learnt she chooses her words carefully. But this one has stuck.
"A lot of turbulent emotions this last 12 hours," was also the start of an Instagram post from her hospital bed in Texas after initially having fractures of the skull, sternum and two vertebrae diagnosed.
"Everybody knows that the journey from injury to fitness is not linear, but I think that with trauma there are so many hidden issues that don't come to light straight away," she continues. "For example, I recently found out I also fractured my hip and rib, [only discovered when the scans were reviewed by a military radiologist], but I'll give myself credit for clearly being intuitive with recovery. You also don't know the extent of the soft tissue damage and with a skull, neck and back injury there are hundreds of ligaments doing many different things."
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