Even though she didn’t have a perfect season, Taylor Knibb sees this weekend’s T100 World Tour race as a fresh start.
According to Lucy Wilde, despite being a two-time world champion and an Olympic silver medallist, Taylor Knibb is still aiming for “the perfect race.”
The 26-year-old American is keen to end this season on a high note despite only competing in two sports at this year’s Olympics in Paris: triathlon and cycling time trial, where he placed 19th in each.
Knibb is hopeful that this weekend’s T100 World Tour event in Ibiza will serve as the ideal springboard for the rest of the year, following an impressive victory in the San Francisco leg.
“I’m excited about the race,” she remarked. “I love racing, and I think sometimes we forget that it’s always good to be excited about a race.”
Currently ranked eleventh in the world in the women’s division, Knibb will need to overcome fierce competition from Kat Matthews and India Lee of Britain to move up to the top of the standings.
Anne Haug of Germany, who was disqualified from the Nice Ironman, will also be a familiar face on the starting line, but Knibb is doing her hardest not to think about those difficult situations.
“I’m nervous to be racing with some of these guys,” she said. “This is Anne’s realm. We saw what happened to her [in Nice], it was unfortunate, but she’s also ready.
“She’s in tip top shape whereas I raced in Paris and that was an A-goal for the season which did not go well,” she added. “I got really sick after that and I lost a lot of fitness, so I’m hopefully on an upswing. I’m more focused than I’ve ever been because the rest of the season is one distance, one bike, one everything.”
In gruelling conditions, Knibb crashed four times in her Olympic time trial debut and only just managed to finish inside the top 20 in the women’s triathlon after coming out of the water in the last third of the field.
While a strong performance and leapfrog up the rankings in Ibiza would create an ideal antidote to a summer of disappointing tests, Knibb firmly believes focusing on the present will reap future rewards.
“A good performance here won’t change the results [from this summer],” she said. “I think it’s time for me to refocus now and the T100 provides a great opportunity to do that.
“I planned my season the way I did because regardless of what happened I wanted to be excited for the second half of the year and so this is my dessert. You can eat dessert without eating the meal.”
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