Originally published at: Think You Had a Strange Journey to Triathlon? Meet Els Visser - Slowtwitch News
Photo: Kevin Mackinnon
No, she won’t be part of any Triathlete of the Year conversations. But that’s not to say that The Netherlands’ Els Visser didn’t enjoy a spectacular 2024 that saw her race in 16 races that were T100-distance or longer. She won Challenge Wanaka in February after finishing third in Tauranga in January. She was second at IRONMAN New Zealand, third at T100 Singapore, won Ironman 70.3 Philippines, won Challenge Taiwan, finished fifth at IRONMAN Hamburg, was third at Challenge Roth (in 8:24, no less!), took second at IRONMAN Vitoria-Gasteiz, second at Challenge Xiamen and rounded out the season with a sixth at IRONMAN 70.3 Western Australia and 17th at the IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship. (Yes, I know that’s three short of 16 races – there was a 10th and a fifth at 70.3 Tallinn and Zell am See, along with a DNF in Nice, but we’ll get to that.)
To give you an idea of just how much racing that is, consider the fact that we’ve been raving about just how much Kat Matthews achieved in 2024, and she started 11 races last year.
Here’s the crazy thing about Els Visser, though. Once you’ve heard her story, it hardly comes as a surprise that she would 1) take on such a challenging schedule and 2) that she’d excel through it.
Red Bull Documentary
Sometime in 2025 we’ll have a chance to get even more details about Visser’s experience in 2014 when a documentary by her sponsor, Red Bull, is released. The producers have been following Visser since 2019, gathering footage for the show, which will look back at the harrowing experience Visser and 24 other crew and tourists endured during boat trip from Lombok to Flores in Bali, Indonesia. (Visser describes the trip in her own words here.)
Visser was just finishing up a gynaecology and obstetrics internship in Bali. It was her last week before returning to the Netherlands to finish up her medical training, and she decided to go to Flores to do some scuba diving. A few days in, during a storm, the boat went down, leaving the five-member crew and 20 tourists scrambling to survive.
“We had one lifeboat without a motor or a paddle, but it was something for six people to sit in,” Visser remembers. “Other people were sitting on the roof of the sinking boat or were in the ocean around the lifeboat, and we were just waiting for morning.”
“We waited the whole night in the dark ocean,” she continued. “Balancing on the sinking boat, just hanging around in the ocean and then the sun came up and we started to see that islands in the far distance.”
Even though the water was 26-27 degrees C (80-82 F), Visser was freezing as the sun started to rise. After a few more hours, she decided to try to swim to the island they could see in the distance. There were a few others who tried to go with her, but in the end she would be separated from the others – it was just her and another woman from New Zealand who eventually made it. They swam for about eight hours, getting there just before sunset. Once there, they realized they were on a volcanic island (Sangeang Api) with nothing on it. They found about a half-cup of fresh water, and then started to save their own urine, realizing that they would likely have to start drinking that over the next few days.
Luckily enough they were rescued the following day, and eventually all but two of the people from the boat were saved. Two Spanish passengers, who ironically were sailors themselves, were never found.
A week after the ordeal Visser was back at school, struggling to deal with the trauma. She would eventually turn to running to clear her mind. She did her first marathon in October, 2015, finishing in 3:30. Just under a year later she did her first triathlon – a sprint event in Amsterdam, which she won. Someone at work told her about IRONMAN, and she figured that she would be best to train for one while she was doing her PhD (since she didn’t have “night or weekend shifts”).
That led her to IRONMAN Switzerland in 2017, where she finished fourth overall. Six months later she was in Australia competing in her first pro race – she finished 10th at IRONMAN Western Australia.
Heavy Race Schedule
Visser has been working with Trisutto coaches for much of her professional career, but began working with Brett Sutton himself in 2021. Last year she competed 12 times in a season that included wins at IRONMAN New Zealand, Challenge Almere and Challenge Canberra. Visser feels that all this racing works for her.
“I’ve been training super continuously without interruptions,” she said in an interview a couple of days before IRONMAN 70.3 Western Australia. “I recover very quickly from my races. And I also really believe that each race makes me better. It gives me another experience and, with the philosophy of training we do, we don’t really taper into a race and after a race we continue training.”
“I really believe that every race is another experience, another challenge to make me physically and mentally stronger,” she continued. “And, in the end, we are here to race, to challenge ourselves and to test ourselves. So, I just enjoy racing a lot.”
Visser can also point to the success she’s enjoyed from the busy schedule. A week after her third-place finish in Roth, she was second to Matthews at IRONMAN Vitoria-Gasteiz. In both cases she points out that those were the best possible results she could have hoped for – beating Anne Haug on her record-setting day in Roth (or Laura Philipp, the eventual IRONMAN world champion) wasn’t likely to happen. Neither was beating a super-fit and fast Matthews in Spain the following week.
“I think, at this moment, it is still about getting my run to the next level, getting my swim to the next level, and that every race just makes me stronger,” she said.
Visser’s body did finally betray her heading into Nice when she was slowed by a stress fracture in her fibula that forced her to pull out of the race. She was able to bounce back to take second at Challenge Xiamen a few months later, then rounded out the season with sixth in Busselton and 17th at the 70.3 worlds in Taupo.
Endless Situation
Photo: Kevin Mackinnon
So how does surviving a shipwreck change the life view of a professional triathlete?
“It’s fading away over the years, but it’s always in my heart,” Visser said. “And it really changed me … It was just like a super endless situation. I was just convinced that my life would come to an end. And so I was very surprised when we got rescued after two days. That’s just like the power of the human body and the mental strength. And, in such an extreme situation, somehow you just find another gear and you just don’t give up and you just find a way to battle through it. Some power. I never realized it’s a power you have physically and mentally, and that’s what I really like now in triathlon – that you have to use the same power to cross that finish line.”
“That was really an eye opener to me to discover that inner strength of our human bodies,” she continued. “And then, meanwhile, I’m just super grateful now, every day, that I’m here … I always appreciated life, but I think now I appreciate it even more. It’s living day by day, enjoying the small moments. Being grateful that I’m still here, that I have the opportunity to live my life.”
Ironically, the experience has also had an interesting affect on her approach to racing.
“I can find, sometimes, that extra gear because I’ve been through worse,” she said. “But what I find very difficult is that there’s always a safe way out. An option that you can quit a race and nothing will happen.”
“I was was in a situation that actually I had to keep swimming towards that island because otherwise I was going to die,” she said. “Actually it was pretty easy that way as well, because there was just no other option than just swimming, and then your mind is just focused … but in triathlon there’s always that safe way out.”
IRONMAN Pro Series for 2025
Visser hadn’t really intended to put much focus on the inaugural year of the IRONMAN Pro Series, but found herself in a position where she was doing well. She’ll take a different tack this year.
“Somehow I worked my way into the series and got some good points,” she said. “I think, for next year, I really want to focus on the IRONMAN Series and pick the races better strategy and really aim for it a bit more.”