The defending champion's journey back to Frankfurt is nothing short of a miracle. Exactly 10 months after she was involved in a bike crash that almost took her life, Camilla Pedersen found herself at the pre-race press conference for the IRONMAN European Championship in Frankfurt. Last September doctors put the 31-year-old in an induced coma as they desperately tried to save her. When she was brought out of the coma, they told her she would never walk again.
She obviously didn't take that message to heart. Pedersen managed to convince the medical staff to let her go to her brother's house on the weekend of the IRONMAN World Championship, where she watched the Kona coverage from the floor. Determined to compete again, Pedersen began the long ordeal back to being one of the world's best triathletes.
It began by learning how to walk again. After walking down the halls of the hospital, Pedersen eventually ventured outside. A 500 m walk had her heart rate at over 160 beats per minute.
In late January she started to train. Not anywhere near the level that she had once found easy on her way to becoming the IRONMAN European champion, but something. Swims couldn't be too long because she'd start to get dizzy. There was so much damage to her bones that even now her coach won't let her run more than an hour in training.
Despite all the limitations, Pedersen has been on fire this year. She's won all five of her races so far this year, including IRONMAN 70.3 wins in Barcelona and Pescara.
For her, though, the wins don't mean nearly as much as the sheer joy of being able to train and race.
Male Pro: Female Pro
1.Frederik Van Lierde 101.Camilla Pedersen
2.Jan Raphael 102.Jodie Swallow
3.Sebastian Kienle 103.Sonja Tajsich
4.Jan Frodeno 104.Natascha Badmann
5.Andreas Raelert 105.Gina Crawford
6.Johann Ackermann 107.Corinne Abraham
7.Clemente Alonso-Mckernan 108.Simone Brändli
8.Miquel Blanchart Tinto 109.Line Foss
9.Denis Chevrot 110.Astrid Ganzow
10.Hannes Cool 113.Helena Herrero Gomez
11.Kurt Debouck 114.Mareen Hufe
12.Alessandro Degasperi 115.Katja Konschak
13.Martijn Dekker 116.Camilla Lindholm
14.Marc Dülsen 117.Annabel Luxford
15.Iván Gómez 118.Liz Lyles
16.Yeunsik Ham 119.Amy Marsh
17.Ivan Jezko 120.Yasuko Miyazaki
18.Jens Kaiser 121.Jenny Schulz
19.Ludovic Le Guellec 124.Eva Wutti
20.Carlos López 125.Lucie Zelenkova Reed
21.Michael Louys 126.Kristin Möller
23.Brendan Naef 127.Mary Beth Ellis
24.Mark Oude Bennink 128.Caitlin Snow
25.Stefano Paoli 129.Stefanie Adam
26.Jens Petersen-Bach
27.David Plese
28.Lukáš Polan
29.Alfred Rahm
30.Evert Scheltinga
32.Hendrik-Jan Verhaegen
33.Damien With
34.Marek Nemcik
35.Vincent Depuiset
36.Benjamin Sanson
38.Ronnie Schildknecht
39.Bas Diederen