KAILUA-KONA, HI– An elite field of professional triathletes from around the globe is preparing to descend on Kailua-Kona, Hawaii for the first-ever women’s edition of the 2023 VinFast IRONMAN World Championship. On Saturday, October 14th, the race will see, in addition to the pros, more than 2,000 age-group women swim, bike, and run in this iconic and historic location, just a few weeks after their male counterparts raced in Nice, France.
Bethel University Swim Coach Kirsten Sass will be one of those elite triathletes competing.
Sass is a long time McKenzie resident. She graduated in the class of 1997 from McKenzie High School. She obtained a Bachelor of Science in Biology from the University of Western Ontario, Canada (’00), completed the Utah College Massage Therapy program with a focus in Sports Massage (’01, ’02), and then obtained her Masters Degree in the Physician Assistant program at Bethel University (’05).
In 1999, at the urging of her father (Dr. Volker Winkler), Sass completed her first triathlon. She pursued the sport and currently holds 10 ITU Triathlon World Championship gold medals and 40 National Champion titles in various multisport events (age group division). In 2017, Sass began guiding for a visually impaired Paratriathlete (Amy Dixon) and went on to guide for her in the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics.
Sass is a Level 1 Certified USA Triathlon Coach, American Red Cross certified Lifeguard, Lifeguard Instructor, and Water Safety Instructor. She is a Physician Assistant with Christian Family Medicine in Huntingdon, Tennessee and resides in McKenzie with her husband (Jeff Sass), and two children (Bella and Sebastian).
Sass commented, “Just beware – it will be a long day. My hope is to finish between 13 and 14 hours. An Ironman race is very unpredictable – and Hawaii is infamous for crazy wind on the bike and brutally hot temperatures. The cutoff for the race is 17 hours (starts at 7am and have to finish by midnight), so here’s hoping to make it by then anyways.”
Race-day coverage will be broadcast live on ironman.com/live.
There is also an app that can be used to track (Ironman Tracker):