The Reinvention of Robbo

Peter Robertson had one hell of a year in 2005. Off the back of his second Olympics in Athens where he placed 24th overall, Robbo came home ready for a break and then a big summer of racing. What he didn’t count on was his mum falling ill with leukemia, a drastically halved national series and then just as his international campaign was about to begin in April, a devastating injury.

ot one to hide the facts, Robbo reflects that 2005 got off to a less than perfect start. "After I broke my rib [in a mountain bike accident, cross training], I had to take a month off completely. It set me back longer than I thought and I struggled a bit during that period. I’ve never been out of action for so long and to be honest, I didn’t cope very well."

As an athlete known for his dogged tenacity on course, and his bright and cheery personality off course, it’s somewhat surprising to hear Robertson confess to just how low he was feeling post-Mooloolaba ’05. In missing the ITU World Cup event he also missed out on qualifying for the 2005 ITU World Championship team, and thus a Commonwealth Games qualifying opportunity.

"I just sort of wasted my time for a month and was really unproductive," he reflects of the period in between March and April. "My first race back after the injury was in Singapore and I raced that event with about one month’s training behind me. But I was really busy trying to organise everything before I left (it was the start of several month’s worth of travel on the road) and I went there a little bit sick and run down, and to race poorly was yet another setback. I expected to race better than I did, so it got the whole trip off to a bad start."

Robbo’s luck didn’t change when he arrived in Canada with the AIS squad either. "It was a fun time in Canada, because all the athletes were there mucking around, but I got really sidetracked and couldn’t focus properly on training."

Using the Canadian base as a jumping point to many of the North American races during Australia’s winter, the AIS team still experienced success on the road. Annabel Luxford consistently finished on the podium, Mirinda Carfrae showed signs of brilliance and athletes like Brad Kahlefeldt went on to bigger and better things. But Robbo failed to figure in any of the top 10’s he raced in and even DNF’d at the lucrative, men versus women, Lifetime Fitness Triathlon, won by Australia’s Craig Alexander.

"I went to Minnesota for the Lifetime Fitness Tri but halfway through the bike I just couldn’t ride anymore. I was with the main bunch and I just ran out of energy, ran out of fitness. I knew going into the race I hadn’t been training enough but with all the prize money on the line I just couldn’t bring myself not to start the race."

For a big time performer like Robbo, DNF’ing in Minnesota was a crushing blow to his already low self-esteem.