Tasmanian ironman Joe Gambles reflects on successful 2017 season

As well as buying a house and becoming a dad for the first time in 2017, Joe Gambles also put together one of his best seasons in recent memory, highlighted by a second-place finish in Cairns’ Asia-Pacific Championships in June and a third-place finish in the ITU World Long Course Championships.

Arriving from Sydney after completing his final race for the year at the weekend, Gambles said he was looking forward to a summer spent in Tasmania before jetting back to Colorado to begin training for the 2018 season.

“I’ve had a couple of tough years, I’ve had a bit of an injury issue the last couple of years so this year was back to racing at my best and a good consistent year,” he said. 

“The highlight of my career is still probably when I placed third at the world 70.3 championships but I’m racing back at that level now so hopefully I can build on this year and continue racing for the next four or five years.”

The 35-year-old said his performance in Cairns stood out as one he was particularly proud of. 

“It’s an event that goes around eight hours and I think I was just over a minute behind at the end that day.

“The guy that won - Josh Amberger - he was 11 minutes in front coming off the bike and I ran a 2:44 marathon coming off the bike and I just ran out of real estate in the end so it was a close one, but I plan to come back next June and race again and hopefully I can take the top spot then.”

Now nine months into fatherhood, Gambles’ coffee shop outings have decreased but not so his passion for triathlon, which he says has only been strengthened with the arrival of son Arlo. 

“It’s a new chapter in our lives and I love being a dad and it definitely gives me more motivation to race because I’m racing for my family, so it’s definitely going to prolong my career.

“I’ll probably end up coming back to Australia and Tasmania twice a year just because of the racing, but the plan is to eventually move back here once I finish my career.”