Royle, 23, was admitted to a hospital in Vitoria, where his Australian team is based, after coughing up blood. A shadow showed up on lung x-rays before a respiratory physician determined that a CT scan showed a 12mm cyst. Yesterday Royle tweeted this thanks for the many messages of concern and that "all is good and I'm feeling fine".
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The Mercury will follow Royle's condition and his progress in the World Triathlon Championships. In this blog, he writes about his third race of the series in Madrid earlier this month.
Before Madrid I thought I knew what it was going to take to get to the next level, but I was wrong, the bar was raised even higher.
Apart from being exhausted when I crossed the line, I was a little disappointed to fade so much over the closing stages of the run. But I quickly came to my senses and realised that I gave everything I had, and more. Eighth in Madrid and ninth in the series. Here is an insight into how the race unfolded.
Madrid was the fourth stop on the World Triathlon Series but for me it was the third race, after not racing Yokohama. I arrived in Europe three weeks before Madrid to allow myself the chance to fully settle and get some solid training in before I raced.
Early May in Vitoria (Spain) is still pretty cold, with day after day not getting above 10 degrees and rainy, but you just had to harden up and get it (the training) done!
Things were going well and I was looking forward to getting out there for the first WTS race in Europe.
I learnt a few things from last year’s Madrid race:
1. The swim doesn’t finish until you are over the hill on the first lap;
2. DON’T run past your bike in T1;
3. If a Brownlee exits the water a few seconds in front you need to sprint your backside off in T1 otherwise the race lead will be gone.
4. A good swim and first lap on the bike will be rewarded in Madrid.
I had an ok swim, but I had to fight the whole way – not fight as in with other swimmers, but I had to remain desperate and not rely on just exciting the water near the lead. Not in Madrid anyway.
I exited the water in 12th, six seconds down on Brownlee. Not good enough, I thought, so I sprinted through T1, made up the six seconds and got on the bike on Brownlee’s wheel.
Three hundred metres from T1 to the start of the hill, so getting your feet in quickly is vital. Once my feet were in I got myself ready to give it everything to get over the hill up the front.
I gave it everything, but Brownlee and Gomez rode away from the rest of us with seemingly ease.
Not again - once over the hill I realised that only myself an Italian and a Russian were close enough to get back across, so over the top and on the descent we gave it everything and by the end of the first lap we were back with the lead.
You beauty, five away on this course, OPPORTUNITY!
Alessandro Fabian, Ivan Vasiliev, Javier Gomez, Jonathon Brownlee and I had a small 30 second gap after the second lap on the group behind, but on this course it’s enough if everyone in the group commits which is what we did. I’ve never been in a position like this on a bike leg, with this calibre of athletes, so I wasn’t sure how I would handle it, but I decided to fully commit on the bike leg.
Our lead slowly grew from 30 seconds to roughly 1:30 by the end of the ride.
I was pretty wrecked starting the run, but I was also excited to be up the front of a WTS race. I didn’t want to push too hard early on, so I settled in behind Fabian and Vasiliev for the initial part of the run.
Before I realised it, Vasiliev had 15 metres on Fabian and me after 1.5km but I was still cautious of not going out too hard. At the 4km mark Vasiliev was 15 seconds up the road when I decided I would try and bridge across.
Don’t die wondering. I was able to close the gap a little and pull away from the Italian for a short period, but with 3km to go I could feel the wheels starting to fall off. My stride was shortening (even more than it already was) and my form was deteriorating.
I tried to keep the basics right but I felt like I wasn’t even achieving that. In the meantime I had gone from shooting for a podium to going into damage control.
I knew that most of the fastest runners were coming from behind in the chase pack. I tried desperately to keep the chasers away, but I lost close to 45 seconds in the last lap. Three of the chasers caught me and I finished in eighth, utterly exhausted.
When Aaron Royle was 14, his parents told him to make a decision between swimming and running. He chose to keep doing both and then added a third - cycling - to focus on triathlons. After finishing Year 12 in 2007, he moved to Wollongong where his coach, Jamie Turner and the NSWIS triathlon is based. He represented Australia for the first time in 2009 at the youth Olympics and then again at the junior world Championships. Since then he has been competing around the world on the International Triathlon Union circuit. Last year he won the under 23 World Triathlon Championships in Auckland and is now competing in the World Triathlon Series. During this series, he came sixth in Auckland and 35th in San Diego. Turner's other Wollongong Wizards will feature in upcoming blogs.
You can follow Aaron’s WTC journey on his website: http://aaronroyle.com/ The next race in the series is Kitzbühel in Austria on July 6.
