Ollie Turner: "I want to discover my physiological limits"

Ollie Turner already made a name for himself at at the Gold Coast’s 2018 Commonwealth Games, but the Jersey-born triathlete told Express he is doing all he can to get his small sporting nation competing at the world’s “biggest races”…

Over £100,000 is set to be distributed to 23 local athletes as part of a new performance scheme helping islanders to excel in their chosen sport.

Jersey Sport this month announced that a total of £103,500 has been allocated to allow the athletes – who compete in 11 different sports – to access professional development workshops on the Performance Sport Programme.

One of the athletes set to benedit from the scheme is 26-year-old international triathlete Ollie Turner, who is currently professionally training in Cardiff’s National Performance Centre.

Express sat down with him to chat about his sporting ambitions, and how the new funding programme will help him to achieve them…

Can you tell us about your sporting journey so far?

I started triathlon when I was nine-years-old but really started taking my training serious at the age of 17 just before the 2018 Commonwealth Games.

My professional career started in 2019 when I qualified for the franchised series of Super League Triathlon which led to a mixture of international and domestic competitions for Great Britain.

In addition to this, I signed multi-year contracts with triathlon teams based in both the German Bundesliga and French Grand Prix race leagues.

Did you expect to get this far in your sport?

Truthfully, as a junior I had no intentions of being a professional athlete.

I knew I enjoyed training hard and I knew I loved being competitive. I certainly liked the idea of it, but I never truly believed it could come to fruition.

I trained consistently, made sacrifices and put all my focus and effort into preparing for the 2018 games and my performances that followed that season set me up for a career in the sport. An opportunity I grabbed with both hands.

Pictured: Ollie represented Jersey at the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Austalia’s Gold Coast

What do you love about your sport?

It’s less so about the sport of triathlon and more so about being a competitor and learning about training methodologies.

Figuring out how to get the absolute most out of myself and ultimately finding the limit of my physiological ability, whilst going man-to-man with whoever rocks up on the start line that day.

How do you feel about being chosen to benefit from the Performance Sport Programme?

I think it’s incredible. We are a tiny island with a wealth of talent.

This kind of support isn’t readily available to many young athletes from other nations including mainland UK.

I think it’s important to recognise how far along we are as a small sporting nation, and I know personally I will do everything in my power to honour the support to the best of my ability on the racecourse.

How will the programme assist your sporting progress?

Triathlon is an extremely expensive sport. I will be putting my funding towards my race calendar.