It’s no easy thing, knowing when you are on the right path.
Life is littered with roads not taken and thoughts of what could have been. In a sense, Alberte Kjær Pedersen has neatly sidestepped that conundrum by tackling two paths at once.
Alongside competing as an elite triathlete and establishing herself as a fixture in the WTCS, she is close to finishing her degree in dentistry. Medical backgrounds are hard to come by at the top of the sport – Miriam Casillas stands out as one notable exception that rule – yet Pedersen has nonetheless pursued it.
“I’ve really loved to have something alongside sport,” explained Pedersen. “I’ve also always liked to study and to help people. I’m quite a practical person too, like I enjoy fixing my bike.”
Dentistry therefore seemed a perfect fit. Her mother is also a dentist which gave the choice an element of familiarity and provided the initial source of inspiration. At the same time, her mother cautioned her about the difficulty of dental school.
Fortunately, Pedersen had an additional figure to look up to in that regard. Maja Alm is a seven-time world champion in orienteering. Of greater significance, she trod the path of combining dentistry and elite sport that Pedersen also hoped to follow, at the same university no less.
The first three years were a little smoother for Pedersen, with a greater theoretical focus in her degree, however, “the last two years I have had clinical work almost every day”. With four days a week taken up by in-person training, triathlon has had to fit around it.
“I haven’t always felt like I have been 100% committed to either one which has been really challenging.”
Academically at least, the hard part is almost over. This summer Pedersen will be graduating; perfect timing with one year to go until the Paris Olympic Games.
Moreover, if balancing sport and studying was a challenge, she covered it well. Hitherto Pedersen has enjoyed plenty of success. She took World Cup wins in 2021 and 2022 and added a silver medal at the World U23 Championships in Edmonton in 2021. Having also earned a best WTCS finish of 4th place in Montreal last summer, Pedersen was an athlete on the rise, even with her academic commitments.
And then came the crash.
At the turn of the year, in a rare moment on winter sun, Pedersen opted to cycle outdoors. “There was a shadow covering a hole in the road and I just didn’t see it.”
The resulting concussion saw her struggle for two months.
“I couldn’t go to school, I couldn’t train, I couldn’t watch anything, I couldn’t ready anything. It was really hard.”
Gradually, though, she worked her back to full health and fitness. After a few months, she was back on a WTCS start line, this time in Yokohama. A strong race in the rain saw her finish 17th. Just two weeks later, she added a 13th place at WTCS Cagliari.
“They went really well,” said Pedersen of the two events. “The Olympic distance has been challenging for me because its so long. Because I’ve been in school I have done a lot on intensity work but I have not done as many hours. I also wanted to try to do two Olympic distance races within two weeks and I think it was great. My body felt fine.”
One aspect to emerge from Yokohama and Cagliari was how well Pedersen ran.
Her running has been on the radar since Edmonton in 2021, but she has sometimes struggled to fully utilise it after a hard bike in the WTCS. This season, it seems she has turned a corner. In Yokohama, she had 6th fastest run while she logged the 5th fastest split in Cagliari. When it comes to her speed on the run, though, her mileage is surprisingly low.
“I run 40-50km per week. I just always find it easy and my body really reacts from the load.”
In Pedersen’s eyes, the key this season has been to run her own race. Out of T2 she has not felt the pressure to blast out of the gates and instead moderate her pacing.
When it comes to running, another road not taken springs up.
As a younger athlete, Pedersen competed internationally in athletics. Indeed her indoor 3000m time of 9:00.80 from 2021 represented a Danish national record.
“Running is definitely easier,” she said with a laugh. “You just put on your running shoes and go. You can also travel round the world and go on vacation with family. Every time triathlon went hard, I wondered if I should switch it out with athletics!”
She has had the same coach since around the age of 14. He gave her ownership of her career but noted the difficulty of qualifying for the Olympics on the track. In the end she opted for triathlon, enjoyed the training more, diversity. Her world U23 medal also provided reassurance in 2021 that she was on the right path.
At a young age, then, her talents have proven multi-faceted enough to warrant potential thoughts about alternative choices.
Rather than lingering of what might have been, though, the more interesting question when it comes to Pedersen is what could yet be.
Now a year older, she sees herself as a better athlete than the one that took on the 2022 Series. One thing she knows she will have to address in the year leading up to Paris will be her swim. The standard of swimming in the women’s Series has risen to an exceptional level. Pedersen is in the process of working on changing her swim to contend with the best.
“I haven’t figured it out yet how to do it but I really want to develop my swim. I also know I need to focus on one thing at a time and I need to get my degree!”
At the same time, Pedersen has found that her swimming in the pool has been improving but then in open water it has not translated.
“It is hard when there are a lot of people and you can’t see anything. Sometimes I just go with the flow but then that leads to wrong decisions like getting on the wrong feet.”
If Pedersen can find a way to rise through the field in the swim, she could become a fearsome proposition. Indeed, if she can find that extra spark in the first discipline, she could suddenly insert herself into the conversation for an Olympic medal next year.
In the more immediate term, too, there are plenty of interesting steps for her to take along her current path. In the wake of WTCS Cagliari she will have a month to squeeze in her final steps before graduation as well as more training before her next hectic block of racing.
At the end of June (the 24th) she will tackle the Danish Championships before immediately heading to Poland for the European Games. Thereafter she will rejoin the WTCS circuit in Hamburg. The WTCS event in Sunderland will follow as will the Paris Olympic Test Event.
While at the Test Event she has no set goal as such, she has several short-term objectives to guide her through the rest of her season.
The first is to match or surpass her 4th place from Montreal last year. In addition, another World Cup gold medal – to make it three wins in three consecutive years – is also among her targets.
One that excites Pedersen the most, though, is to medal at the European Championships over the Super Sprint distance in Balikesir, Turkey, in August. With her running ability and trajectory in the sport, it would be no surprise to see her hit all three targets this season.
As Pedersen takes her next steps, then, watch this space. She will be rising very high in no time at all.
