It is August 2017. A young Kenji Nener is on the cusp of making his WTCS debut for Australia in Montreal.
However, shortly before the race, he is pulled aside by the Australian high performance director for a quick chat. In the space of a conversation, Nener’s career is over a mere blink before it is about to begin.
Even if Nener had finished in the top-10, the Australian team had made the decision that he would not be starting at any future WTCS races. Whatever their metrics, whatever their reasons, the Australians were ringing the death knell for Nener’s career. A devastated Nener therefore served as a domestique for his much-fancied teammate Jacob Birtwhistle in Montreal and then departed, his spirits sapped.
It is June 2023. An older, wiser Kenji Nener stands on the start line of WTCS Montreal.
The winds of change have carried him far over the intervening years. A switch of nationality to Japan saw him realise his childhood dream of becoming an Olympian. A first foray into a WTCS top-10 followed. Then he did it again with a 9th place at the recent WTCS Cagliari. In many respects, then, Nener stood on the pontoon in Montreal very much a man arriving as opposed to one about to depart.
Beside him stood his friend and another fancied Australian talent, Matthew Hauser. Lined up on the right-hand side, together the pair crushed the swim and put themselves in a great position to control the race.
In many ways, Montreal showed a side to Nener that has not always been seen. Practically every time the camera settled on the front of the race, there was Nener, driving the pace. Throughout, he showed great tactical sense, positioning himsef at the head of the field around the tight dead turns.
With several injections of pace, he also whittled the front pack down from twenty-three to sixteen men. The likes of Jonathan Brownlee and Marten Van Riel proved important allies but with another helping hand or two, the front pack might have distanced the chasers and consigned the third group to the back of the race.
Nevertheless, Montreal saw Nener produce a ride of real maturity and control. It is one thing to make a front pack. It is another to able to set the pace from time to time. Yet it is another thing entirely to essentially captain the ship of a WTCS lead group.
It does not simply speak to having the ability and the confidence to ride at the front. More significantly it suggests that the rest of the front group accedes to the pack leader’s authority and accepts that they are strong enough to take charge. Whether a conscious or unconscious choice (or maybe something that was simply dictated by screaming thighs), the front pack made their respect for Nener clear.
On the run, Nener then stayed in the mix at the front until the very end. He ultimately finished 10th and looked a little worse for wear at the finish. Until the final half kilometre, though, he showed that his place is at the sharp end of the race.
With his performance in Montreal, he also cemented his ranking inside the WTCS top-10 (he sits in 8th).
The result itself, though, is largely incidental. The bigger story at play here is that Nener has exorcised a demon that has stalked him for half a dozen years.
Once upon a time in Montreal, Nener was told he was not good enough. Once upon a time, he might have been unwise enough to believe that. By his own admission, his experience in 2017 sunk his confidence and made him feel that he did not belong at the top level.
Although WTCS Montreal in 2023 was not his best ever finish, it marked final closure on a particular chapter in his career. For Nener, it was final confirmation that he had proven himself at the highest level, that he belonged.
Six years ago, he was told he was not good enough before the biggest moment of his career. Six long years passed by, during which the world changed and Nener’s life entered avenues he had never foreseen. Now he is back in the city of his great disappointment, not just a WTCS athlete but a regular top-10 contender, not just strong enough but one of the strongest men across all disciplines in the field.
To call it redemption might be the wrong word when there was no fault of his own at play, yet across his times in Montreal Nener has completed his arc to the top.
The softly-spoken triathlete might be too polite to say such things in public but as he reflects on the changes between his moments in Montreal, it would be fair if he posed a simple question. How do you like them apples?
