Lorene Hatelt
Facing challenges beyond world competition

Gary Butler

With its punishing regimen of a 1.5-kilometre swim, a 40-kilometre bicycle race and a 10-kilometre run, a triathlon is anything but a hop, a skip and a jump. “In triathlon, more than any other sport, your body is your tool because so many different demands are placed upon it,” explains Lorene Hatelt, seven-time (and current) International Triathlon Union world champion in the Physically Challenged category. At age nine, the Alberta-born, Ontario-based athlete suffered an aneurysm, which resulted in a total loss of control on the right side of her body. She had to learn to walk all over again. In her early teens, she developed spasticity, a neurological condition causing involuntary muscle contractions, and now receives regular Botox injections to relax the muscles. Shortly before she competed in the 2002 World Triathlon Championships in Mexico, Lorene developed a tumour on her right Achilles tendon, which severely aggravated her spasticity. “What did I do?” she recalls. “I completed the triathlon. My dad always said can’t isn’t a word.” Somewhat anti-prophetically, however, a Toronto physiotherapist once told Lorene’s mother (Lorene overheard the callous remark), “This girl’s never going to be an Olympic athlete.”

Do you feel your aneurysm could have been better treated? In terms of warnings, I had been complaining about headaches, but our doctor said, “Kids don’t get headaches.” In the hospital, they treated me as though I’d had a concussion and gave me a head X-ray. MRIs did not exist. After two weeks, they kicked me out; they just didn’t know what was wrong. But I had basically lost the use of the right side of my body. Top physiotherapists later told my mother that if they’d got to me when I was a kid, I wouldn’t suffer as much spasticity as I do now.

Illustration by Antony Hare

What’s your winning recipe, determination and effort?
I have learned hard and fast that if you want something, you need to be your own advocate. I sought out physical activity between the ages of 10 and 20. I played a lot of softball; we curled as a family and we were always out on our bikes. I never sat still; I was always moving.

How did you become a triathlete?
After college, I belonged to a running group, and one day I went swimming with a friend after we ran. I saw that though she was faster on the road, I was faster in the pool. In 1982, I had watched Julie Moss crawl across the finish line in the Ironman Triathlon in Hawaii, and I suddenly wanted to find out what a race like that would make of me.

What has competing made of you?
What I know now is that attitude can do so much for you; it’s beyond science. My first triathlon was indescribably tough, but I never doubted I could do it. You can always be optimistic.
 
Are you your own doctor, informally?
The best triathletes can tell their doctors  what they need — they are that finely tuned to their bodies. When you have a disability, you have a “bag of tricks.” I ran today and my foot is sore and I don’t know why, because I did nothing abnormal. So I’ll go to my bag of tricks. The answer might be taking a bath or sitting in my car for 10 minutes to calm down. I am a highly stressed type-A person. But what worked last week might not work today. Athletes with disabilities are resourceful — they have to be.