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As far as birthday presents go, securing selection for the Commonwealth Games in a sport he had never competed in seven months ago is right up there for Sam Harding.
Perth-born Harding, who turned 31 on Wednesday, has punched his ticket to Birmingham after securing qualification for Australia’s para-triathlon team.
The former track star lives with choroideremia, a hereditary condition which has resulted in a loss of peripheral vision, and reached the final of the 1500m T13 at last year’s Tokyo Paralympics.
However, he has since swapped the running spikes for a swimsuit, bike and joggers in the aftermath of the games, competing in the triathlon with a guide who is tethered to him during the swim and run and cycles with him during the tandem bike ride.
Harding said it was a special moment to be named for the Commonwealth Games, given his meteoric rise in the triathlon world.
“Everything’s gone as well as what I thought it could have when I first started the para-triathlon. I was hoping I could potentially make this team for Birmingham when I first started after Tokyo last year,” he said.
While the decision to change to triathlon may have been a post-Tokyo move, Harding unwittingly set the gears in motion years ago.
The Wesley College alumni was a successful tandem cyclist as a teenager and represented WA on multiple occasions, but moved to Canberra and the AIS a decade ago to chase his athletics dreams.
It was around that time Harding also sought out Australian Paralympics coach Yuriy Vdovychenko for swimming lessons.
Fast forward to 2021 and Harding was encouraged to consider a change by sports physiologist Avish Sharma and Paralympic triathlete Jono Goerlach, who both believed he had the requisite skillset.
“Avish knew I’d been seeing Yuriy for swimming lessons when I first moved to Canberra and he knew I had some experience in cycling when I was in school,” Harding said.
“He said ‘look, next year, there’s triathlon at the Commonwealth Games, it could be something you could be really good at’ and these weird, intertwining circumstances ended up leading me to take on the challenge.”
Harding said his biggest challenge was adapting to a new training plan, although his long history with Vdovychenko and running coach Philo Saunders eased the transition.
“Cycling is probably my weakest at the moment, it’s the sport I’ve been most removed from. I’m just slowly increasing it month by month, seeing where everything lies and what I can manage,” he said.
“In the swimming, Yuri is such a technician. Swimming is probably the most technical, so I’m giving quite a lot of time to it every day, sometimes twice a day.
“With the running, I’ve cut back from doing around 120 kms a week to 80-90kms, just doing the key sessions and that’s been really good for my body; it’s probably the least sore it’s been for quite a while.”
The new training regime has not dampened Harding’s enjoyment, nor has it hindered his early races, with two Oceania Triathlon Para Cup victories to his name this year, and he is already eyeing up the World Triathlon Championships in Abu Dhabi in November.
