Turner caps off 'best year ever' with Ironman

Ollie Turner says his 13th place at Ironman Western Australia has capped off his "best year ever", despite battling illness at the event.

The 27-year-old from Jersey finished his first full-length Ironman in 8:09:55.

The result came six weeks after his first-ever podium finish in a half Ironman in China.

The result was even more remarkable given Turner had been hospitalised with a gastric illness in the build-up to the race in Busselton, which is about 136 miles (220km) south of Perth.

"It's probably like the sickest I've been from like an acute perspective, it was so rough," Turner told BBC Radio Jersey.

"I felt really good for the first three hours and then hour four I started to think 'OK this is a bit tough and this is a little bit higher than numbers-wise I'd anticipated to be riding at' and then at about 110km into the 180km bike I fully blew, I got dropped from the group that I was in and I was completely isolated on my own.

"I took an hour to catch myself and get as much food in as possible and then hit the ground running on the marathon and it felt really good for first 10km then slowly just died a death in the final 30km.

"But in these kind of scenarios you just have to kind of turn your head off to all of those negative thoughts you're going through and just plough on through it. It's a case of literally just making your mind go completely blank and putting one foot in front of the other.

"I actually ended up putting back a few positions on the run and I think a few of the guys in front had blown up so bad that they actually couldn't even finish, so I'd gone from just getting myself over the finish line to crossing the finish line and thinking, '13th, that wasn't too bad for my first one'. "

Turner completed the 2.4-mile (3.86km) swim in 46:21 before a time of 4:13:29 for the 112-mile (180.25km) bike ride and then ended by running a marathon in a time of 3:04:39.

The race ended a tough 2025 for Turner, who contracted Immune Thrombocytopenic Purpura, which lowers the amount of platelets in your blood, which are vital for clotting, earlier in the year.

It led to him having to scale back his training early in the season before being given the all-clear.

"I would say 2025 has been my best year ever as a whole, not even just from a sporting perspective, it really has been like an amazing year," he said.

"I've had some of the highest highs and some of my lowest lows - I've faced adversity, but with most of the adversity that has kind of come my way I'm very optimistic and I try and always see a silver lining.

"There's always something you can be doing in any scenario when you're bogged down with something or you're restricting what you can do, there is always something you can do.

"By doing nothing and just sulking, you're not improving at all, so I always try and find something that I can do to focus on."

Turner will spend the winter learning from his race in Australia and preparing to take on more full-length Ironman races in 2026.

He has raced at the past two Commonwealth Games for Jersey in the Olympic-distance triathlon, but the sport is not on the programme for the slimmed-down Commonwealth Games in Glasgow next summer.

However, Turner hopes the sport may be restored for the 2030 event in the Indian city of Ahmedabad.

"I know I've made the step up to the long course this year, but I would definitely jump back down for the 2030 Commonwealth Games," he said.

"I think in 2030 Jersey could actually have enough triathletes for a relay team which would be the first-ever Jersey relay team you'd ever seen at a Commonwealth Games.

"And I don't think we would just be there to make up the numbers, I truly believe we could be there to compete for those top positions, because we have a whole wealth of talent coming up at the moment."