Raña going back to triathlon

Champion triathlete Iván Raña is giving up on his one-year experiment trying to race in the professional ranks to return full-time to triathlon.

The 30-year-old found pro cycling a bumpy road during his year with Xacobeo-Galicia. Raña crashed in his road debut and broke his collarbone during the Mallorca Challenge back in February.

The former world triathlon world champion said he wants to return to the relative comfort of triathlon instead of taking more risks on the road.

“I was suffering and having a ball all at the same time,” Raña told the Spanish wire service EFE. “The current situation is very difficult now in cycling and I prefer to make a bet on something more sure. I will return to triathlon with the intention of regaining my former level.”

Raña,  twice fifth in the Olympic Games, said his primary goal will be preparing for the 2012 Games in London.

Raña said he expects it to take him “four or five” months to return to competitive condition on the triathlon circuit.

His switch to the road in 2009 came from his professed lifetime admiration for road racers. He said his hard-knock experiences racing this year only reconfirmed his belief that road racing is one of the most grueling and demanding sports.

“Physically, I was up for it, but it would take more another three years to learn the skills to win on the road,” he said. “The tension and suffering in road cycling is extreme. You’re going at 180 (beats per minute) and you have to think very fast.”

Raña bounced back from his crash at Mallorca and completed about 45 race days, primarily in races in Spain and Portugal. His best result was 37th overall at the Vuelta a la Rioja.

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Patrick O'Grady

Patrick O’Grady joined VeloNews as its cartoonist in 1989 and a succession of editors has failed to dislodge him. He was a newspaperman from 1977 to 1991, but it felt too much like work, plus he never got any free bike parts. So he quit for the carefree life of a free-lance rumormonger, and now you have to deal with him, as do we. Sorry ’bout that. O’Grady lives in Colorado Springs, Colorado, with his wife, Shannon, and their cats, Turkish and Miss Mia Sopaipilla. He has more bikes than chins, but only just barely.

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