Triathlete Was Rocking a Virtual Race. In Came Her 'Idiot' Husband

Tim O'Donnell trips over power cord, unplugs Mirinda Carfrae's bike during Ironman competition
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Apr 6, 2020 9:07 AM CDT
Updated Apr 11, 2020 7:00 AM CDT
'Idiot' Husband Screws Up Virtual Ironman
In this undated photo, three-time Ironman world champion Mirinda Carfrae, left, and her husband, elite triathlete Tim O'Donnell, pose with their 1-year-old daughter, Isabelle, during a break in their training camp in Lawrence, Kan.   (Talbot Cox via AP)

The very first Ironman VR Pro Challenge took place over the weekend—a weekly competition being held during the coronavirus pandemic, per the South China Morning Post—and former Ironman champ Mirinda Carfrae of Australia was kicking butt from her living room in Boulder, Colo. The Washington Post notes the 39-year-old triathlete was in second place in the race being aired live on Facebook—until suddenly she wasn't, because her bike stopped working. At first Carfrae thought she simply hadn't plugged it in well, until her husband, fellow triathlete Tim O'Donnell, who'd just come into the room, made a confession. "He decided to bring my trophies in here as motivation, and when he walked around the back, he kicked out the plug," Carfrae said in a video call afterward, O'Donnell standing "sheepishly" beside her, per the Guardian. "What an idiot!"

Carfrae did keep going in the race after her bike was reconnected, though she didn't finish in the top three. She held up a sign later on that simply said, "It's Tim's fault." Carfrae also posted about the debacle in an Instagram story, showing clips of articles about what O'Donnell had done, complete with an "LOL" and laughing emoji. "Would you forgive your quarantine partner for messing up your virtual Ironman?" she wrote in one of her captions. She kept the gentle jabbing going in an IG follow-up. "Really enjoyed taking part in the @ironman VR1 this weekend," she wrote Sunday night. "Might take a few more days to forgive @tointri for the colossal stuff up." (More triathlon stories.)

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