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Three-time Ironman world champion Peter Reid has been inducted into Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame. In this interview with the Vancouver Sun, Reid looks back on his time training as a triathlete in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.
Peter Reid’s triathlon career really took off after he moved to Victoria from Montreal in 1994, primarily for the ability to train year-round.
But as much as he appreciated an environment that allowed him to thrive physically, the move also delivered an intellectual milieu that was just as crucial to his athletic development.
“One of the biggest things I found when I got to Victoria was the other athletes that were there, cyclists like Alison Sydor and Roland Green,” said Reid, a three-time Ironman world champion who was officially inducted Tuesday into the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame in Calgary.
“I got to hang out with Olympic rowers as well. Rowers, mountain bikers, we’d sit in the coffee shops, trading ideas and stories. That was the biggest resource for me. It was like ‘What are you doing? How’s your weight training? Nutrition?’ Just sitting around the stools in the coffee shop and it was kind of like going to training university, a great exchange of ideas.”
He said he got the opportunity to swim a few times with Olympian Rick Say and was always able to bounce ideas off coaches with the national cycling centre.
Reid was 25 when made the cross-country move. He’d never been to Victoria, but was sold on the weather, the swimming pools and “seeing the [1994] Commonwealth Games on TV.”
“That had a really big impact on me,” Reid said in a telephone interview. “All the morning shows were talking about Victoria. It lured me.
“That next summer, I reached an entirely different level. I went from an average Canadian athlete to competing with the world’s best.”
Read more: Vancouversun.com
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