On a hard day, a S’pore triathlete finds inspiration from her child

This story is about a girl who will be two next month and her mother who is closing in on 37. It’s about motherhood, flu, tenacity and the places athletes go to find inspiration. It’s about the battles we never see in sport which are fought inside the skull.

In Rafael Nadal’s head in Madrid, insecurity is like a handcuff. Will his body hold? In Choo Ling Er’s brain in Cebu, the Philippines, there were multiple conversations unfolding during her half-Ironman triathlon on April 21.