Some years late, but here is what I read in his biography. During a training camp with the Spanish team, they discovered he had a bicuspid heart valve. This is the basics that impedes blood flowing back in the wrong direction from the heart. A normal person has a tricuspid valve. I.e. the valve is triple, and his is double. This means the risk of flow back is higher. It also means it’s like natural mechanical doping, because blood flow smoother into the heart.
The Spanish federation suspended his license. He then started competing in France with a Swiss license (not 100% sure). He was then able to get his license back and win the under 23 world championship without having competed for a long time. To then having his license frozen again. He had to pay a lawyer and a cardiologist to get the license back. When the 2004 Olympics came, he was in conditions to race, but sour grapes in the Spanish federation would not allow for it. All in all, he lost like two years during the process.
He won a local olympic-distance race organized by one of his main sponsors and he will race a half distance next weekend. He said he didn’t want to retire injured and hopes to come back and race something next year. If he shows up, he’s fit and ready as he showed this weekend.
so good to see. i’ve missed him these last years and i think the way some races have played out would really have benefitted him. st.george and nice, for instance, would probably be good courses for him.
True and one of my all time favorites in the sport. Had some terrible luck around Olympic races… Beijing/Rio, won Xterra worlds, 70.3 Worlds twice, 5 time ITU champ, won Hyvee, Escape from Alcatraz and the list just goes on. Definitely an amazing talent and good to see him racing again.
I would LOVE to see a fit Gomez and Brownlee race the PTO circuit next year. Fingers crossed they can both get race for for a season. It would add some real spice to the PTO to have the new generation racing these bad ass dudes, pushing each other to their limits.
Sam Laidlow indicated that Gomez, Brownlee and Frodo were the three athletes that inspired him as a kid. How cool would it be if he could race against him soon.
Yep 🙠I would love to have a Brownlee/Gomez rivalry in PTO, the sport needs it! (Throw the Norweigens into the mix if need be) even if we can get this for just one more year?
Frodo might even be tempted to give it another year, lets have em all line up fit and firing at 70.3 worlds next year ðŸ™ðŸ™ðŸ™
Javier has just won the Mediterranean Epic Triathlon in Alicante, Spain. 1.9k-81k (hilly)-21k . His time for the HM was 1.07.59… I think the course is legit.
Bike averaged 40km/h (as I said it was hilly)…
I guess he will try to qualify for Kona before the end of the year and give it another try before retiring
The talk from him and Dan Plews has been really positive, just sounds like a rough COVID and the current injury have prevented showing off that work. I’d love to see him get 1 more big win.
Gomez is now 40 years old and missed a year of competing at the highest level, hopefully like Frodo he has at least one great race left in him.
i really like javi and feel that, like ali brownlee, he’s missed out on a handful of races the last few years that would have suited him really well. world’s at st george, and again at nice … both seem like good courses for him. especially the way st george panned out would have played well for him.
Definitely better Nice and St George than Kona for Javier. But he has a lot of work to do with his cycling. The bar is so high now that in PTO races and IM you have to be in the top of the game on the bike (Ditlev and Laidlow´s times are just ridiculous). He is not made for panflat courses, but he also suffered in the 70.3 worlds climbs in 2019 in Nice. His cadence on the bike seems lower, so I think he has been working on power to start running less tired. “We´ll see”