She Was Told She Couldn’t Do It. Anne Haug Became an Olympian and One of the Sport’s All Time Greats Despite the Odds.
Photo: Kevin Mackinnon
Anne Haug might have started the season looking to “test her limits” (that’s based on an interview that we did with the 2019 IRONMAN world champ in March), but in an Instagram post from earlier today, she announced that she will call it quits after a storied career that includes numerous wins and a world-best oh-so-close-to-eight-hours performance at Challenge Roth last year.
“If the mental and physical batteries are empty, it’s time for me to go,” Haug wrote. “The last two years have been a massive struggle in terms of my physical health and keep the mental strength to always fight my way back. Last weekend in the race, my willpower was just not strong enough to win this battle against my body anymore.”
Haug has struggled with her health for a number of years, especially after getting COVID in March, 2021. She would eventually develop COVID-related diabetes, which made it difficult for her to fuel herself properly during races. Last year she was sick for much of the first part of the year, then bounced back with an impressive course-record win at IRONMAN Lanzarote, then a record-setting 8:02:38 win at Challenge Roth.
Things went awry after that, though – she got sick after the race in Roth and struggled through T100 London. At the IRONMAN World Championship in Nice she flatted coming out of T1 and was unable to get the tire fixed and was forced to pull out of the race.
This year has also been challenging – sickness forced her to pull out of the IRONMAN African Championship, and when she finally was able to start a full-distance race in hopes of validating her slot for Kona at IRONMAN Vitoria-Gasteiz, she struggled and would eventually pull out.
Late Bloomer
Haug only got into the sport in her 20s – she and her long-time coach Dan Lorang were in school together taking sports science. Over the next few years she learned to swim and would follow Lorang’s training programs to eventually turn pro at the age of 27. By 2012 she not only competed for Germany at the Olympics, but she would win the World Triathlon Grand Final and take the silver medal in the world championship that year. After competing at the Olympics in 2016, she turned to long distance racing.
Haug won her first 70.3 race at her second home in Lanzarote in 2017, beating Lucy Charles-Barclay, and in 2018 made her full-distance debut at the IRONMAN European Championship in Frankfurt, finishing fourth. She would take third later that year at both the 70.3 worlds in South Africa, then repeat that bronze-medal performance in Kona.
In 2019 she blasted through a 2:51:07 marathon to win the world title in Kona, only to have the prime of her long-distance career put on hold thanks to the COVID pandemic. Haug would take the win at Challenge Roth in 2021 and 2022. In 2022 she also took third at both IRONMAN World Championships in St. George and Kona. After a blistering start to 2023 that saw her win her first three races, Haug would “settle” with three runner-up finishes to round out the year in Roth (behind Daniella Ryf’s then world-best 8:08 finish), the PTO Asian Open in Singapore and then in Kona behind Charles-Barclay.
Haug sets a new world best at Challenge Roth 2024. Photo: Christoph Raithal/ Challenge Roth
“I had a normal life before and then in university I decided I want to be a professional athlete and everyone said you can’t do it,” she told me during our interview in Lanzarote last March. “You can’t swim and won’t be possible to do it, especially in ITU (draft legal) racing. (They said) you won’t qualify for the Olympics because you’re way too old. It was always something I had to fight for. It was always something I wanted to do – I think it’s different than if you get pushed into sports by your parents. So, it was my decision to do it, and I know it’s a big privilege to do it. Therefore, if my career is over, I want to be able to say I’ve given everything I could.”
No one would argue that Anne Haug didn’t give the sport “everything she could.” When I asked what the next step might be once she’s done racing as a pro, she said:
“I never really made plans because I never planned to be a pro triathlete and the door just opened,” she said. “I got the opportunity and I said, oh, let’s try it and see how far you can go. And I think if one door closes, another one will open. And I think if you are open minded and see what life has to offer, then you will find something.”
Someone who went from just trying to break 40 minutes for 10 km to becoming one of the sport’s fastest runners; someone who was “too old” to make the Olympics to competing there twice; someone who became a five-time IRONMAN World Championship medalist (of all colours) … no-doubt will find something after finding a career that others never imagined.
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Anne HaugChallenge RothIRONMAN World ChampionshipRetirementNotable Replies
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Long time ago, when I first met her, her career was absolutely not predictable. I got the impression of not much more than a mediocre aerobic talent.
Thanks for the article. She does not get enough recognition in my opinion. Never has. Possibly due to her somewhat limited use of social media. But she always came across as extremely likeable and I loved watching her run, trying to chase the better swimmers. I will miss seeing her in races.
Her longevity is quite unprecedented I think? I mean a number of athletes competed into their 40s, but I don’t recall people running their best at that age (2:39 in Roth at age 41 last year, after three marathons completed there previously in 2:44-2:46, already in the carbon shoe era). The run “goes away first”, according to conventional wisdom at least.
Defying the odds really seems to be the theme here.
On another note, I bet she knows what she’s going to do, just won’t say it. We’ll see.
Yes, I agree she didn’t get the recognition she deserved. She wasn’t hugely outgoing, and loved her time in Lanzarote training hard and long, so she didn’t get out and do a lot of publicity stuff to increase her exposure and recognition. You are bang on - she is a super-nice person and was always great to interview.
I truly don’t think she has the next “thing” dialled in. The way she put it when I talked to her in March was that her career in the sport came as a surprise, and she would let the next step come to her in a similar manner. She was really grounded and happy, though, so I am not surprised that she’s ready to move on to something new!