By Erika Norton, WPAOG staff

All graduates know that it takes endurance to make it through the rigorous 47-month experience at West Point. Similarly, as any athlete knows, successfully competing in a triathlon takes incredible endurance.

Does this mean that cadets on the West Point Triathlon Team have double the endurance of a typical cadet? To train and compete in triathlons as a cadet at West Point certainly takes a special type of grit, especially since most cadets who join the West Point Triathlon Team have never completed a triathlon before.

Developing into a competitive triathlete often takes years of training, but cadets don’t have that luxury. According to Head Coach Amy Maxwell, who was named the USA Triathlon Coach of the Year in 2022, the cadets who try out for the West Point Triathlon Team usually either ran on their high school cross country team or swam on their high school swim team—and most can ride a bike—but it is rare that they have endured a triathlon, a multisport race consisting of swimming, cycling, and running over various distances.

“Their rate of development is accelerated,” Maxwell said. “There is a steep learning curve, and it’s a ton of fun to see cadets get to the competitive level and to see them do things that they didn’t know were possible and didn’t even know existed before coming onto the team.” Interestingly, while many cadets join the team having never completed a triathlon before, most graduate with a lifelong passion for the sport and continue competing in triathlons as Army officers. First Lieutenant Waverly Schnetzler ’22, for example, an Apache pilot in Texas, competed in the Ironman World Championship in Nice, France this past September.

Building Triathlon Champions

According to Dr. Ken Allen ’93, the officer in charge for the Triathlon Team, there are only 20 spots on the club team. Spots are capped at this low number due to the sport’s highly competitive and time-consuming nature. In-season training and competitions are co-ed, so at tryouts the team tries to find a balance of men and women for those slots.

“Through my time on the team these four years, I’ve learned how to effectively manage my time, push through mental barriers, and tackle challenging tasks that take me out of my comfort zone.”

—Triathlon Team Captain CDT Emma McGovern ’25

Regarding practice, cadets are in the pool every morning from 5:30am to 6:30am and then they bike or run in the afternoon. There isn’t enough time to get in a 50- to 70-mile bike ride during the week, so cadets have to be willing to sacrifice their weekends to get in that degree of training. Members of the team are authorized to bike ride off post, and some will ride over the Bear Mountain Bridge to U.S. Route 9W or other bike trails in the area. While swimming in the pool is good practice, cadets will also ride their bikes to Camp Buckner and then put on their wetsuits in order to train in Lake Popolopen, which helps prepare them for open-water swimming, as the cool, fresh water there better resembles competition conditions.

“It takes a lot of time and a lot of commitment to be a triathlete,” Allen said, “but we have a very good success rate.”

The West Point Triathlon Team is part of the Northeast Collegiate Triathlon Conference (NECTC), which is part of USA Triathlon, and competes against schools from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and all the way up to Maine. While the team does not compete against Navy, both the Merchant Marine Academy and the Coast Guard Academy are part of the NECTC and compete against West Point regularly. Over the last decade, West Point’s Triathlon Team has dominated the NECTC. In 2017, for example, the West Point Triathlon Team led the team awards with a perfect score of 500 points for all three categories: Male Team, Female Team and Combined Team. They not only won all three Olympic distance races but also both sprint distance races as well. The West Point Triathlon Team has won several NECTC championships and qualified for nationals the past 10 years.

The Triathlon Team acknowledges that it would not be able to maintain this level of success without the support of generous donors. The sport is extremely expensive and many of the team’s best athletes would have never been able to participate had they been responsible for purchasing their own equipment. Dave Alberga ’84 donated all the team bikes, race wheels, and bike travel cases, and he purchased wetsuits on two occasions. The team also enjoys support from various West Point Societies when it travels to their local areas. Allen cited the tremendous support the team receives each year from Preston Miller ’68 when it travels to Arizona for spring break training and from Michael “Mac” Crumlin ’83 whenever the team is in California. A large group of alumni—Pat Kane ’73, Bob Wilson ’73, Lisa Steptoe ’87, and others—also support the team by participating in the West Point Triathlon at Camp Buckner, which had its 34th annual running back in August.

Beyond team success, several cadet triathletes have qualified for world triathlon championship competitions. Cadets Nelle Ray ’25 and Kate Bacon ’26, for example, completed the Ironman World Championship in September. Competing on one of the hardest courses in the world, Ray and Bacon completed a 2.4-mile open-water swim in the Mediterranean Sea, a 112-mile bike race up an 8,000-plus-foot climb, and a 26.2-mile marathon run. Ray placed 12th in her age group (women’s 18-24) and eighth in the military division. Bacon was 22nd in the age group and 14th in the military division. Team Captain Cadet Emma McGovern ’25 has also competed in an Ironman competition. Before joining the team as a plebe, she had only participated in a few triathlons (and just for fun, without a competitive focus). “Through my time on the team these four years, I’ve learned how to effectively manage my time, push through mental barriers, and tackle challenging tasks that take me out of my comfort zone,” McGovern said. “I’ve competed in a range of distances, from sprint draft-legal events to an Ironman, which has given me experience in pacing, strategy, and resilience.”

Building Army Skills, Values and Leaders

Both McGovern and Coach Maxwell feel that the skills cadets develop and the lessons they learn from the Triathlon Team directly impact their future military career. Cadets on the team develop a certain mentality from competing in this endurance sport that allows them to balance academics, physical training, and personal life.

The cadets know that they cannot participate and travel with the team unless they are proficient in all three pillars of the Academy (academic, military, and physical), and their ability to handle the extra load is part of the consideration given to selection during tryouts. The team has had several members selected for key leadership positions within the Corps of Cadets, up to and including the Brigade Staff. The team’s academic success is particularly notable going back to when Allen took over in 2011 as the officer in charge. Adam Leemans ’13 was a mechanical engineer, first in his class, and earned a graduate scholarship to Cambridge University. More recently, Nolan Pearce ’22 was a physics major who earned a technical scholarship to Lincoln Laboratory and attended Northeastern University. Among the current cadets on the Triathlon Team, Bacon has over a 4.0 GPA and is pursuing medical school. The discipline required for success in the sport translates to the critical time-management skills that allow the cadets to be strong members of their classes and companies and ultimately will enable them to handle the pressures of being Army officers in the future. Being a member of the team also creates a well-rounded individual who is secure being out of his or her comfort zone and who has learned how to think under pressure.

“I think developing an attention to detail is something that’s really important as cadets graduate and become leaders in the Army,” Maxwell said. “We drive home an understanding of the impact that one loose bike bolt could have on the outcome of a competition, and I think committing to this mentality translates well into whatever career they have after being at West Point.”

“I often say to cadets that we either all succeed or we all fail, because, even though it’s an individual sport we are scored as a team,” Maxwell continued. “So, everything from their training to their physical health, mental health, behaviors, outlook, and care of the equipment translates into how well we all do, not just how well the individual does.”

While it is a team sport, the West Point Triathlon Team has graduated some amazing individuals, especially some historic West Point women. According to Allen, when Catherine Sedy ’16 joined the team, she could barely swim, but she was a great runner. She ended up competing in the Ironman 70.3 World Championships three years in a row. After graduation, she branched Infantry as one of the very first women allowed to branch combat arms directly out of West Point. Furthermore, some of the first women to graduate from Ranger School were on the West Point Triathlon Team.

“The goal of the Competitive Club Program is to develop leaders of character through sport, and the teamwork, discipline, attention-to-detail, resiliency, and endurance learned as a member of the Triathlon Team will serve cadets for a lifetime, and our Army is better with leaders who have these skills.”

— Dr. Ken Allen ’93, Triathlon Team OIC

Photo 1:Members of the West Point Triathlon Team cycling Mount Lemmon near Tucson, AZ during one of the team’s annual spring break training trips in March 2019. Photo 2: CDT Kate Bacon ’26 finishing the 112-mile bike portion of the September 2024 Ironman World Championship in Nice, France. Photo 3: The men’s start at Collegiate Nationals in Lake Lanier, Georgia, which was held in April 2023. Photo 4: CDT Nelle Ray ’25 running the marathon leg of the September 2024 Ironman World Championship in Nice, France. Photo 5: The current West Point Triathlon Team posing in September 2024 prior to racing in the Northeast Collegiate Triathlon Conference Championship in Harriman, New York. CDT Nelle Ray ’25 running the marathon leg of the September 2024 Ironman World Championship in Nice, France.

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