'WE CAN SURVIVE ANYTHING'

Having beaten the odds, the multi-sport champ’s teaching others  how to overcome dark times

- Monique Balvert-O’Connor

Scars from the past fuel Wānaka-based champion athlete Simone Maier when she competes in gruelling races, such as the iconic 243-kilometre Kathmandu Coast to Coast multi-sport event, which she recently won for the fifth time.

At 44, Simone (nicknamed Speedy) finished in her fastest time yet of just 12 hours and 31 minutes to become one of only two women – the other is New Zealand Olympian Kathy Lynch – to ever take home first place five times.

There’s no doubting German-born Simone is both physically and mentally strong. But the latter, she says, took a long time and lots of hard work to acquire.

Her life story includes surviving sexual abuse, suicide attempts and a debilitating eating disorder.

“Bad things happened to me,” she shares. “But it all shaped me into the person I am today – not that you would wish that on anyone. It took me a long time, but I built up resilience. In endurance events, as a result of what I’ve been through, I have a higher tolerance of dealing with pain.”

As a child, Simone says she was sexually abused by a neighbour in her small Bavarian hometown. With that trauma haunting her teenage years, she dropped out of school at 15, became suicidal and developed an eating disorder. Hospitalisation to treat anorexia and months of rehab followed.