Multiple record-breaking cyclist, age-group World Champion triathlete, climate-activist adventurer, motivational speaker, ex aerospace engineer & sustainable education course founder. Coming to sport in her mid-thirties after leaving a toxic relationship, Kate Strong wasted no time and was crowned age-group Australian National Champion and subsequently World Champion in triathlon within 18 months of taking up the sport.
Struggling with her mental health after she could no longer compete, she started exploring how to use sport as a vehicle for positive change, attempting to set a new world record on a static cycle – a male record existed, but no female equivalent. After a first failed attempt, she set a world’s first female record for furthest distance on a static bike in 24 hours, and also broke the 1- and 12-hour records simultaneously.
Kate Strong’s sporting career has evolved towards advocacy and engaging communities. In 2023, she completed Climate Cycle, a 3,300 mile bike ride around mainland Britain on a hand-made bamboo bike. During these three months, she visited 50 communities, charities, companies, initiatives and projects that are working towards mitigating climate change.
The future of our planet doesn’t just lie in the youth’s hands, but also in the steps we take today. Positive personal wellbeing and planetary health are synonymous with success. From this passion, she’s founded a School Sustainability Course as well as offers coaching & consulting to a wide range of leaders, including Olympic athletes & CEOs.
Kate Strong was number one in the world in triathlon for her competitive age group, yet standing on the podium with a gold medal around her neck didn’t fill her with the satisfaction and delight that she expected. Instead, she realised that she now had something others’ desired and an invisible target painted on her back. Joy of swimming, cycling and running was slowly replaced with a fear of losing what she had earned and the reason why Kate initially competed in triathlon: Striving to be her best self, was replaced with a hunger – and need – to be the best. Within 12 months, she lost her world championship title. Mentally burnt out from overtraining and physically injured from pushing her body too far, Kate was forced to retire from triathlon. Initially refusing to acknowledge that her identity as a triathlete, and world champion, had gone, she started building herself from the ground up working on a zero-hour contract as a bathroom cleaner in a local cafe. Anonymously completing tasks typically ignored or avoided, Kate realised that the pride and joy she was seeking through competitive sport was possible in every action. Within a few months, not only was the cafe glistening, but Kate’s renewed understanding that her only failure was to attach her success to a medal hanging around her neck enabled her to pivot from triathlon into cycling world records and extreme sporting adventures that have reached millions of people worldwide.
Kate Strong has redesigned herself on numerous occasions. Some changes were decisions made by her, such as leaving her job in aerospace engineering and pursuing her dream of owning her own business. Yet others were forced changes, imposed upon her due to injury and ‘failure’. After sustaining an injury that left her unable to run, Kate had to work through the emotional burden of no longer competing in triathlon, even though she had been age-group World Champion. She attempted – and failed – her first attempt at a world record in cycling, and even in the face of public ‘failure’, four years later, she achieved what she set out and became a world record cyclist. Kate shares how she keeps going through moments where many would typically stop and how she applies this resilient mindset to her career in GreenTech and beyond.
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