Retired rugby legend and Six Nations icon smashes gruelling new sport at 47 and now works incredibly normal job
WALES rugby legend Shane Williams has become even more of an impressive athlete since taking up a new sport in retirement.
The former winger, 47, earned 87 caps for his country and won two Six Nations Grand Slams in 2005 and 2008.
Williams, who now works day-to-day as the head of rugby at his old school, reached the semi-finals of the 2011 World Cup, before he hung up his boots in 2015.
Yet despite being retired from rugby for nearly a decade, he is in better shape than ever and has taken to competing in Ironman events.
Williams has now completed his seventh Ironman Wales for the Welsh Air Ambulance charity.
It consists of a 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike ride and a marathon.
He completed the course in a thoroughly impressive 11 hours and 31 minutes.
The time saw him place 12th in his age category of 45-49 year-old men and 112th out of 2,400 overall.
He improved by more than 30 minutes on his performance from 12 months ago – and even surpassed his sub 12-hour time from 2019.
Speaking after the race, he told the BBC: “Relieved is a word, but I loved every second of it, that swim was the toughest swim I’ve done in seven Ironmen.
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“I got absolutely battered by the waves, the tide seemed to try and pull us back towards the beach constantly and it’s my slowest swim time but that’s the luck of draw I suppose.
“I actually didn’t go too hard on the bike because I wanted to really hit the marathon quite hard and fresh, well, as fresh as I could.
“Just got a little wet in some patches and hit some leaves and fell, there were a couple of crashes, so I hope everyone’s OK, but the bike is tough.
“If you asked me, I haven’t done any of the others (Ironmen) but from what I hear from other people it’s the toughest bike course in Ironman and yeah, I’d have to agree.”