Multi-sport champ Simone Maier on how sport helped her through her darkest days

Scars from the past fuel Wānaka-based champion athlete Simone Maier when she competes in gruelling races, such as the iconic 243-kilometre Kathmandu Coast to Coast multi-sport event, which she recently won for the fifth time.

At 44, Simone (nicknamed Speedy) finished in her fastest time yet of just 12 hours and 31 minutes to become one of only two women – the other is New Zealand Olympian Kathy Lynch – to ever take home first place five times.

There’s no doubting German-born Simone is both physically and mentally strong. But the latter, she says, took a long time and lots of hard work to acquire.

Her life story includes surviving sexual abuse, suicide attempts and a debilitating eating disorder.

“Bad things happened to me,” she shares. “But it all shaped me into the person I am today – not that you would wish that on anyone. It took me a long time, but I built up resilience. In endurance events, as a result of what I’ve been through, I have a higher tolerance of dealing with pain.”

As a child, Simone says she was sexually abused by a neighbour in her small Bavarian hometown.

With that trauma haunting her teenage years, she dropped out of school at 15, became suicidal and developed an eating disorder. Hospitalisation to treat anorexia and months of rehab followed.

As part of her rehabilitation, authorities assigned her a caregiver. Hers was a keen sportsman and Simone remembers it as an unexpected but life-changing turning point as he helped her rediscover the love of sport she had enjoyed as a child.

“It was probably the beginning of my new life,” she reflects. “I was just so happy being out there running and cycling. I felt so much joy. My trauma is always going to be there. The past is a scar that is in my system. But I believe sport has had a massive impact on my life and keeping me going.”

In her mid-twenties, Simone began competing in triathlons and tackled her first Ironman. Then, aged 27, and feeling the need for a fresh start, Simone consulted a map and found “a little country at the edge of the world”. Wānaka was where she landed.

“I had found my happy place,” says Simone, who adds visual joy to her new hometown. Her clothing is bright, her hair-do features a ridge of mohawk-like ponytail nubbins, and you might spot her riding around on an electric unicycle, decked with fluorescent lights and a speaker playing opera music.

Within two years of arriving in Wānaka, this colourful character had won the 2009 Ironman New Zealand women’s 25-29 age group event.

She went on to top podiums around the world in a variety of individual and team events, including GODZone, Red Bull Defiance, Adventure Race World Championships, Challenge Wānaka Multi and, of course, Coast to Coast, which she initially tackled in 2017 and first won in 2019.

While competing overseas, she met her partner Marcel Hagener, a fellow German-born multi-sport racer at the time, in China. The two live and work at Outlet Camp Wānaka.

Now she also channels all she’s overcome and achieved in life to teach resilience to others in the hope they can benefit from the struggles she’s overcome.

“When I used to have flashbacks, I thought my life wasn’t worth living if it meant constantly having bad memories. But man, have I discovered what life has to offer when you work on it!” smiles Simone, who alongside fellow adventure racer Emily Wilson operates A Level Up. The pair were also runners-up in TV series Tracked last year.

Simone’s enthusiastic about the company, which offers courses providing all the skills needed for multi-sport adventure racing, heading into the backcountry with confidence, or for businesses wanting to strengthen their team dynamics. 

“We want to guide people to connect, embrace challenge and the power of teamwork. To get the best out of themselves and others, to build trust, resilience and adaptability. These experiences in the outdoors teach us important skills that transcend into all areas of life.”

Listening to the talented athlete, it’s clear how passionate she is and how far she’s come. Simone shares for several years as a teenager, she didn’t speak at all.

“Now I love talking and see the value in talking about what I have been through. It helps to get it out of your system and sometimes helps others too.”

Looking ahead, Simone is content enjoying some rest after her latest Coast to Coast win. But, she won’t yet commit to it being her last.

“After all, no woman has won it six times.”