At the start of 2021, USA’s Kevin McDowell embarked on his Tokyo 2020 Olympic Qualification campaign exactly ten years on from discovering he had Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. Having won silver in the 2010 Youth Olympic Games, a promising career was suddenly taken from under him.

After six months of intense chemo the cancer was removed, but the physical recovery process was only just beginning. Determined to return to triathlon as quickly as possible, Kevin realised in 2013 he needed to take a major step back, returning fully in 2014 to resume what he had begun.

A first World Cup podium came in 2014, Pan American Games silver in 2015, and more recently Kevin has been a regular in and around the podium and on the US Mixed Team Relay squad. Having made the team for Tokyo, he produced an excellent sixth-place finish in the individual race and then helped the USA to silver in the first ever Olympic Mixed Team Relay.