IT isn’t all gold and glory for athletes at the top of their sport.
For Wellington men Mike Mercer, Casey Glover and Shaun Kavanagh their selection to represent New Zealand at the ITU Triathlon World Champs in Beijing in September has meant many hard hours raining and fundraising. The three men qualified for Beijing at the national triathlon held at Waitangi Park in March. They will now represent New Zealand but receive no financial assistance to go to Beijing, and it’s a sport with an already high running cost.
“Triathlon isn’t a cheap sport,” Mercer says. “A good bike costs you $10,000 and you go through a pair of running shoes every two or three months.”
Now the three are raising money to get to the world champs. A movie fundraiser is planned at Sky City Cinemas, Queensgate Lower Hutt on June 13. They hope to hold another fundraiser at Wellington’s Embassy Theatre.  
Training is pretty intense. The three have their own coaches and along with their everyday jobs they’re fitting in 25 hours of training each week.
“You need to have an understanding boss and a flexible working environment,” Mercer says.
Kavanagh, the youngest of the three, is the veteran of the sport. He’s been to three world championships before and qualified in the 20 to 24 age group at the Waitangi Park nationals. He also won the Tauranga half ironman last year. For Glover and Mercer this is the first time they have qualified for the world champs, both in the 25-29 age group. Glover has only just taken up triathlon but swimming should be his strength. He holds the speed record for swimming Cook Strait. Mercer is the cyclist.
“For a triathlon you’ve got to be fit in all three sports, swimming, running and cycling,” Mercer says. “The three of us have a strength in each, like for Casey he’d be first out of the water. If this was a team sport we’d beat them all.”
But while triathlon is an individual sport Mercer says he needs to be in a team environment to enjoy it.
“I also get bored easily. Just doing running, cycling or swimming gets monotonous but mix the three together and you’ve got the best sport there is.”