Triathlete Ollie Turner says he is excited to be racing in Jersey for the first time in four years.
Triathlete Ollie Turner said he is excited to be racing in Jersey for the first time in four years.
The 26-year-old will compete in next month's Jersey Marathon as he prepares to race his first full-length Ironman event in December.
Turner, who competed for the island at the last Commonwealth Games, has recovered from a serious blood disorder that had hampered his season.
"I've not raced in Jersey since [the] 2021 Triathlon Super League," Turner told BBC Radio Jersey.
"It's just nice to come back and race in front of a home crowd, be at home, sleep in my bedroom when I was a child [and] have time with my family and my friends.
"It's extra special racing at home."
As well as suffering from Immune Thrombocytopenic Purpura (ITP), a disorder which lowers the amount of platelets in your blood which are vital for clotting, Turner also had an injury in his upper leg which sidelined him during the first half of the year.
"I've always described it as being someone who's been relatively lucky regarding injuries and illnesses and that sort of stuff," he said.
"I've been training full-time now for five years, and I haven't really had anything too drastic go wrong injury or illness-wise, and then 2025 just threw me everything at once, basically.
"It was pretty rough but these things happen and you just have to roll with the punches.
"At the end of the day, I always think if I can just deal with what I can control in this particular scenario, that [the illness and injury] was out of my control, so I just took the advice of the doctors.
"I was back on track relatively quick I would say. I'm still kind of in the back end of the bloods, I've still not been signed off, but I'm no longer on medication. My body seems to be holding out quite well."
Turner is hopeful that running the Jersey Marathon will be a good part of his preparation for a race in Australia at the end of the year, when he will run a marathon after a 180km (112 miles) cycle race and an opening swim of 3.9km (2.4 miles).
"It was an idea that I had when I was stagnant at home looking for things that I could do," he said.
"It's fantastic preparation to run the marathon in Jersey, to run the distance and get familiar with that effort and that kind of distance.
"I'm coming back to Jersey so I'm going to get to watch the build up, watch them build the start line, the expo, all the exciting parts that run along parallel with the actual race itself, so it'd be nice to be there early and embrace it."
Category: General Sports
