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Triathlete’s bike and gear lost in Heathrow airport

Sian Hurley, who has travelled from Australia for an Ironman UK event, says she fears being unable to race after her bike failed to make her connecting flight to Newcastle

A triathlete from Australia hoping to compete in next weekend’s Ironman UK race in Bolton has been left in limbo after her bike and gear went missing in Heathrow Airport.

Sian Hurley, originally from Morpeth, flew from Brisbane with her family last weekend on a Malaysian Airlines flight, via Kuala Lumpur, to London Heathrow.

They then flew to Newcastle, but while the family’s luggage made the connecting flight, Hurley’s bike and gear did not. While officials insisted that the bike was on board the Newcastle flight, according to the triathlete’s tracking device the equipment remained in Terminal 2 at Heathrow.

Last week, a technical malfunction at Heathrow’s Terminal 2 caused a massive luggage backlog, with some passengers forced to fly without their bags while others faced hours of delays at check-in.

Hurley told the BBC that she has been contacting the airport, as well as Malaysian Airlines and British Airways, since arriving on Monday.

BA said it would try to help Hurley, but noted that transferring luggage from one terminal to another was the responsibility of Malaysian Airlines.

> The stuff they never tell you about flying with your bike

Hurley, who works as an intensive care nurse in Brisbane, posted on Facebook earlier this week that it was “absolutely disgraceful” that her bike and gear were lost, after “12 months of hard training [and] a huge amount of money spent”.

The triathlete has competed in six Ironman events, including the 2014 World Championships in Hawaii, and had spent the last year building up for the Bolton race on 3 July, England’s only full-distance Ironman, which offers qualifying slots for this year’s worlds.

“I've always ran since the age of 11 but a few years ago I broke my ankle and took up cycling and love it, I love the whole endurance of Ironman, pushing my body to its limits, being fit and being a good role model for my kids,” she told the BBC

Hurley has described the wait for news about her bike – which remains lost almost seven days after she arrived in the UK – as stressful and disappointing.

“There is no sense of urgency from Heathrow, but I have one as I have to build my bike and get training on it,” she told the BBC.

“Every day I'm not training I'm losing time – it’s utterly disappointing and very stressful.

“I haven't seen my family for three years and they've missed the kids growing up and now I'm back here I just can't relax and enjoy my family time.

“But every day I'm off my bike I worry about my training.”

Ryan joined road.cc in December 2021 and since then has kept the site’s readers and listeners informed and enthralled (well at least occasionally) on news, the live blog, and the road.cc Podcast. After boarding a wrong bus at the world championships and ruining a good pair of jeans at the cyclocross, he now serves as road.cc’s senior news writer. Before his foray into cycling journalism, he wallowed in the equally pitiless world of academia, where he wrote a book about Victorian politics and droned on about cycling and bikes to classes of bored students (while taking every chance he could get to talk about cycling in print or on the radio). He can be found riding his bike very slowly around the narrow, scenic country lanes of Co. Down.

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2 comments

Avatar
Secret_squirrel | 1 year ago
2 likes

Woman loses bag during flight transfer doesnt have the same ring to it does it?

Feel for her but not sure this was worth a Road.cc story.

Avatar
ktache | 1 year ago
2 likes

I hope the publicity either gets things going with the airlines or that someone lends Sian a bike.

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