Mayo athlete Aichlinn O’Reilly to represent Ireland at major triathlon event

WESTPORT native Aichlinn O’Reilly is set to compete for Ireland at a major triathlon event in Australia.

O’Reilly, who is first Irish man ever to complete an ironman in under eight hours, will be competing at the Long Course Triathlon Championships in Townsville, Australia, this weekend.

Held annually since 1994, the championships involve a continuous swim-cycle-run, over distances varying between that of an Olympic-distance and an Iron-distance triathlon race. No Irish man has ever won the competition.

Last year, O’Reilly set an Irish record when he recorded a time of 7.59.04 in the Busselton Ironman in Western Australia. The previous record was set at 8.07.37 by Bryan McCrystal in Challenge Roth in 2018.

A keen swimmer in his younger years, O’Reilly moved to Australia in October - just weeks before making national headlines in the Busselton Ironman.

He is a sports science graduate and is hoping to compete at the Ironman World Championships in Marbella next year. 

Speaking to The Mayo News, O’Reilly said he has mainly dedicated himself to full-time training since leaving his job as a window cleaner.

This weekend’s race will be his first in many months following a calf injury.

“You can only test yourself so much in training. Training is so different to racing and training’s been going really well,” he said.

“I am very happy with training, but you can only see if you are race-ready on race day. I’m pretty sure I am. I am really looking forward to racing. Racing is why I do it and not having had the chance to race yet this year has been pretty tough on me, I suppose.

“I love to race and I’m really looking forward to this one at the weekend and just seeing how I get on and see how I stack up.”