McNamee relishing role in trailblazing T100 Triathlon World Tour

A home Commonwealth Games, two Ironman World Championship bronze medals and a newly-acquired place on the PTO board later, McNamee has scaled heights he never thought possible when he took part in Edinburgh’s notorious New Year’s Day Triathlon as a youngster.

With nearly two decades in the sport behind him, the 35-year-old is currently competing on the T100 World Tour and is in Singapore this weekend for the second in the eight-race series across a string of glittering host cities, with the series hoping to become the ‘F1 of triathlon’.

The sport’s ultimate showcase remains the Olympics but this summer’s race in Paris has been thrust into the limelight for the wrong reasons this week.

Paris 2024 president Tony Estanguet admitted the race could be rescheduled or the swimming leg removed if heavy rain affects water quality in the River Seine, which was found to contain ‘alarming’ levels of bacteria in a recent survey by the Surfrider Foundation Europe charity.

“It would be a disaster for the Games and for triathlon if you didn’t have a swim,” McNamee said.

“It’s something they should have been on top of a lot earlier but I think they will do what they need to do to get a swim.

“With the media backlash that’s going on, I just cannot see the Olympic triathlon going ahead without a swim. I’m pretty confident it will go ahead and what has been released in the media will guarantee that it goes ahead.

“Water quality is something we always have to be wary of and be careful about. I feel like water quality in general has got worse, I can’t remember being worried about it when I started 20 years ago. It’s got progressively worse throughout the world in that time.

“But with regard to the Olympics, it’s not a triathlon unless there’s a swim. Even if they have to take it outside of Paris, it’s just not feasible to do it without a swim.”

McNamee, who finished seventh when Glasgow staged the Commonwealth Games a decade ago, is one of the lucky ones when it comes to ill effects from poor quality water in races.

Sickness has so far eluded the Scot, who nonetheless 'knows a lot of people who have suffered’, and he is hoping similar fortune shines on his compatriot Beth Potter this summer as she bids for gold in the French capital.

“I left short course racing as Beth was starting but I have known of her from when she was a very young age,” he said.

“As a youngster, she was incredible at swimming and running. For years and years, everyone within triathlon in Scotland was begging her to do triathlon as we knew how talented she would be.

“She said no for six or seven years and it wasn’t until after Rio that she decided to make the switch.

“It has been incredible to watch her progress, and it’s something that everyone around her knew was possible from a young age.”

McNamee grew up in Irvine but has been based in his fiancé’s home city, Girona, near Barcelona, for the last 10 years – which he admits has made off-season training easier.

“I love Scotland but when you do an endurance sport which sometimes requires you to cycle outside for four or five hours, doing that in the Scottish winter is doable but not pleasant,” he said.

“When I lived in Scotland, you would spend the winter trying to travel to places like the Canary Islands to train.

“I got to the point where I realised it was just silly spending three or four months of the year constantly travelling to find sunshine when I could just move and be based there constantly.”

The Stirling University graduate’s lifestyle remains a globetrotting one, however.

He joined the PTO board in February to give athletes a say in the T100 World Tour’s future – ‘a way of giving something back’ – and he is relishing competing in some of the illustrious locations set to host the 100km showpieces (2km swim, 80km bike and 18km run) over the remainder of the year.

“It's really exciting,” said McNamee, who occupied the Ironman World Championship podium in 2017 and 2018.

“It’s nice to see something refreshing, I’ve been in this sport a long time and to see an event organiser take a different approach is really encouraging. I think it is going to be a success.

“We are here in Singapore, we’ve been in Miami, and I’m very much looking forward to getting to London, it will be incredible to race in the heart of the city.

“Then we have other races in places like San Francisco and Dubai. We have some iconic locations and it’s a great, refreshing way to showcase the sport.

“As the season develops and there’s more of a narrative, it will get even more interesting to follow.”

The only way is up for McNamee following a DNF in searing Miami heat during the season opener.

Similarly challenging conditions await in Singapore but the Scot travels with fond memories having finished inside the top 10 at last year’s PTO Asian Open in the city state.

“It’s a beautiful place to race,” he said. “The skyline is iconic, especially to swim in Marina Bay, and the buildings are insane. I also never realised until last year how much passion there is for sport here.

“I’m not in the best shape going into this event but unless you put yourself on the race line, you never know what might happen.

“I’m here and I’m going to give it my best shot.”