For better of worse, lockdown changed many people’s lives and Chloe Sparrow is a case in point.
The breakthrough Brit believes she’d be in a classroom right now instead of winning elite triathlons if she hadn’t been furloughed from her job in a nursery in 2021.
Instead, Sparrow is now a rising star in the sport after winning Challenge St Pölten in May for the first professional middle-distance triumph of her career – and she reckons there is more to come.
Crazy period
She told the TRI247 podcast (embedded below): “I actually laugh and I always think if that crazy period of time that we all went through never happened I’d probably be doing the job that I went to university for which was a secondary school PE teacher. That’s what I studied for and that’s what I wanted to do.
“Then lockdown happened and I got furloughed from working at a nursery. So I had all this time. The weather was amazing in the UK, which is very rare, but we had really nice weather.
“And so I just started running and started running every day as we do, like hard, because you don’t know what an easy jog is when you first start running. You just start running hard every day.
“I had this five-mile route and I would literally do it every day and see if I could get faster every day, like crazy.”
Shin splints provide another curveball
It wasn’t all plain sailing though, and Sparrow’s thoughts didn’t begin to turn towards triathlon until she got injured and couldn’t run any more.
She said: “I got shin splints and I kind of lost my mind that I was furloughed and not working but I couldn’t run so I thought what else can I do?
“My brother had a mountain bike in the shed from when he was like eight years old, and I got that out and started riding and really loved it.”
But it wasn’t until a random incident down a country lane ignited her competitive instinct that something really clicked.
Feeding off anger
She said: “I went off for a ride and I remember riding along this country lane and this girl overtook me and I’ve always been super competitive…
“This girl overtook me really fast and I was like: ‘How?!? I’m giving it some hell, how has she just overtaken me so fast?’ So I went home and I was really angry.
“I’ve just tried to ride as hard as I can for an hour and some girl just rode really fast by me. And this is how oblivious I was. My brother was like: ‘She’d be on a road bike, you’re on a mountain bike…’
“I was like: ‘Right. Okay. I need a road bike.’ So I bought a road bike off Facebook for £200. Shin Splints got better. Then I thought, I’ve really enjoyed cycling. I enjoy running.
“I mean, I’m not very good at it, but I enjoy it. And I used to swim as a kid. So I thought I’ll enter a sprint triathlon, a local sprint triathlon and fell in love with it since then.”
Future looks bright
Sparrow earned her pro licence two years later, and managed top-10 finishes in all her races in her first year in competition in 2024 – apart from DNFs at Challenge Wales and Challenge Cagnes-Sur-Mer.
She has stuck to Challenge races so far this year, and while she did not finish Sir Bani Yas in April she came eighth at The Championship Samorin in May before winning St Pölten seven days later.
Still only 26, the future looks bright now Chloe has put a spell of bad breaks and setbacks behind her. But she reckons the future is bright for the sport in general too with new young talent emerging all the time.
A new generation coming through
Sparrow said: “It’s lovely to see, I love seeing people in their 20s now taking up IRONMAN and taking up triathlon because I can relate to that.
“I can relate to just taking up this hobby because you love it and you love being outdoors and you love running.
“And I love to see that because it’s changed my life, me doing that. So it’s great to see so many young people taking it up now.”
