On 30 October, Emma Jeffcoat graduated as a firefighter in New South Wales, Australia. Eight days later, on Saturday 7 November, she is due to race at the Triathlon World Cup in Hong Kong, where she is on the entry list published by World Triathlon. The Australian, who raced in the individual event and the mixed relay at Tokyo 2020, has just joined Fire and Rescue NSW.
There was a time when a recovery Friday left Jeffcoat wondering: “What do I do with all this time?” For her, an easy day already meant a gym session and 90 minutes on the bike. Her answer was to find a job at a wave pool in Melbourne, where she could put her nursing skills to use and surf before or after her shift. Her coach reminded her that she could also just rest.
From Sundays at the beach to a borrowed bike
Jeffcoat grew up on Sydney’s Northern Beaches. She joined a surf lifesaving club at six and spent her Sundays there. She also went diving with her father. She told ‘The Mermaid Society’ that she swam all year round and did surf lifesaving every summer. At the time, she wanted to compete professionally in surf lifesaving, which took her from beach to beach along the Australian coast.
“I turned up with a friend’s mountain bike,” she recalled of her first triathlon. She barely knew how to use the gears and still qualified for the national championships. As she was getting started in triathlon, she studied nursing at the University of Sydney and developed an interest in emergency care. In 2024, she explained how she had fitted training around nursing shifts by setting aside days for each: “It’s about being disciplined enough to know where my time and my focus needs to lie on that particular day.”
What changed after Tokyo
After her first Olympics, Jeffcoat still wanted to qualify for another Games, but she also began thinking more about what she wanted to do outside competition. She told ‘Triathlon Nutrition Academy’ that her focus had widened after Tokyo. She was excited about continuing to work in healthcare, considered becoming a paramedic and spoke about wanting to start a family. She talked about those plans years before graduating as a firefighter.
Her approach to eating on training days changed too. For a time, she felt she had to earn the right to eat through exercise. After working with a dietitian, she began preparing what she would need the day before. She kept a cool bag in the car with oats, a sandwich and snacks. That meant she could eat before and after sessions, even on days like the Wednesday when she fitted in a run, a swim, a gym session, physiotherapy and an evening bike race. She got home close to nine.
What she does for fun
Jeffcoat’s view is simple: “A happy athlete is a fast one.” For her, that means making time to surf, ride horses and get away to the coast. In the same interview, she acknowledged that social media shows the highlights and leaves out many of the exhausting days. Making time for what she enjoys, she said, has helped her hold on to her enthusiasm for racing.
After Tokyo, the Australian Olympic Committee invited her to visit schools through its ‘Olympics Unleashed’ programme. “I really enjoy public speaking & working with kids it was a no brainer,” she told AusTriathlon. In classrooms across New South Wales, she talks about the habits she developed as a child and the physical and mental skills that can help pupils pursue their own goals. She says she can never resist sharing her favourite motto: “Dare to dream.”
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