Two years ago there was a fatal accident on the Ironman Hamburg bike route. A British amateur athlete survived – and for the first time publicly tells of the tragic event and its difficult path back to sport.
Jan Frodeno should be a big farewell. The Olympic champion and three-time Ironman world champion says goodbye to professional sports with his last race in Germany. And everything seems perfect: the conditions are excellent. It is sunny, dry – the professionals fly on their racing machines at the Elbdeich city out and then on the same street again on their racing machines.
Motorcyclist collides head -on with athletes
But then there is the tragic event that everyone involved and eyewitnesses will never forget. The driver of an accompanying motorcycle overtakes the top group on the left lane at high speed. The sports show sends live, also the following moment. Outside the camera’s perspective, the motorcycle collides frontally with an oncoming amateur athlete, a young British. In the live stream you can see how debris and the athlete are thrown into the top group in the middle of the right track.
The 70-year-old motorcyclist still dies at the scene of the accident. The triathlete is taken to a hospital seriously injured. The 26-year-old has several vertebral fractures, broken ribs, injured organs, the lungs are collapsed.
Perfect start – “it was fun”
For the first time, Tom Page now speaks to the NDR about the accident and his way back to sport.
He had traveled to Hamburg with his girlfriend to complete his first long distance. And the day starts perfectly for the rookie: it only takes 59 minutes to swim for the 3.8 kilometers. The change to the bike is also going well. “I remember that I felt really good. It was fun, the many people on the track, then I came to the first catering station and next I only know that I’m in the hospital,” says Page.
The competition continues after the serious accident. Subsequent athletes have to push their bikes across the dike at the scene of the accident. Tom’s girlfriend is worried because she doesn’t discover him on the track. The scene of the accident also happens. First she gets the information that he is in the broom car because of a bike defect, reports Page. Then she reaches the bad news.
Tom Page is treated in the hospital for days. Suddenly his phone rings: “Then Jan Frodeno actually called me and asked how I was.” The most successful German triathlete promises to help the amateur, contacted his sponsors. Up to this point, Page has not yet properly understood what happened to him, he describes.
Tom Page after the accident in the Hamburg hospital.
“Maybe it is my luck that I can’t remember the accident at all. It doesn’t put me so much. Only when I got my bike back did I see how destroyed it was. The front wheel folded, cracks and breaks in the carbon fiber everywhere. At that moment I understood what was involved in forces.”
A new bike from triathlon star Frodeno
When Page is healthy again, he goes a trip around the world with his partner. By bike you cycle home from Singapore through Asia and Europe. An incomparable experience.
In the middle comes the information that triathlon star Frodeno has organized a new bike and a new competition suit. “If that hadn’t happened if there wasn’t this great bike at home when I came back – I don’t know if I would have returned to the triathlon,” says the 28 -year -old today.
But the passion is back. And exactly two years after the terrible accident, the young triathlon talent is back on a starting line. Not in the Hanseatic city, but with a small triathlon near his home in Sheffield. “It wasn’t planned, but I think it’s a nice sign,” says Page and swallows.
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Sports show | 01.06.2025 | 6:00 a.m.
