Boerne triathlete Travis Decker battled severe illness and frigid conditions on his way to a top-10 finish at the World Triathlon Championships in Vancouver, BC. Courtesy photo

Boerne High School student Travis Decker bested both severe illness and harsh elements to score another top ten finish at Friday’s World Triathlon Championships in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Decker’s 10th-place finish was actually one spot lower than he captured last year in Hamburg, Germany, but has to be at least twice as impressive given the circumstances this time around.

Decker says he began feeling ill the Saturday before the race, and ended up being hospitalized Sunday night.

“I had a bunch of antibiotics,” Decker said. “They really still don’t know what was wrong. I’m hoping it was just the normal flu. It was very severe, though. I had a temperature over 100 degrees for a solid three days.”

Decker says his sponsor, Joe’s Pro Bikes, assumed he would scratch himself from the race, and posted a message online telling Decker’s teammates they might want to drop by the hospital to cheer him up. Instead, Decker, who was still in the hospital Tuesday night, told his doctors he needed to catch an early flight to Vancouver the next morning.

“I told them I’ve got to go, no matter what, I’ve got to go,” Decker said. “So they released me from the hospital Tuesday night and the next morning I was on an airplane to Vancouver.”

As if missing three days of training while lying in a hospital bed weren’t bad enough, Decker was in for a rude surprise when he arrived in Vancouver.

“It was about 55 degrees outside, and rainy, and windy,” Decker said. “The water temperature was about 51.”

Conditions were so harsh that race officials announced they were shortening several races to safeguard swimmers from hypothermia.

Decker’s division, though, included a straight-line swim with no point to turn around, so instead of being shorter, the swimming and running legs of his race were several hundred meters longer than he usually trains for. Conditions on race day were brutal.

“The water was so cold no one could retain body heat,” Decker said of the swimming competition.

“It was also pouring rain during the bike race, which consisted of a two-mile climb and a one-mile downhill, and it was four loops of that.”

Decker said he had to sacrifice speed on the downhill to keep from hydroplaning, but there was no way to compensate for the cold.

“Coming off the bike I couldn’t feel my hands, I couldn’t feel my feet and I couldn’t feel my face,” he said.

“When I was in transition I couldn’t get my helmet off because I couldn’t squeeze my hands together to unclip it. During the run I couldn’t feel anything from my knees down. Occasionally I’d look down to make sure I was still running on my feet and hadn’t broken my ankles or anything. I just really couldn’t feel anything.”

Decker had entered the race, which was held on his 18th birthday, as the U.S. team’s top seed in the 19-under division. Given what he had to overcome, he was satisfied to finish fourth on his team and in the top 10 overall.

“I had a pretty bad race in my eyes and I still managed to pull off a top 10,” Decker said.

“Going in, I would have considered myself one of the favorites, but you can’t always have everything go your own way.”

Assuming things go even half his way, Decker hopes to be hitting his strike again June 22 when he races in the 2008 Triathlon World Cup in Des Moines, Iowa.

“It’s one of about three races to determine who’s going to be on the national team next year,” Decker said. “It’s another big international event and it’s going to be a major race for everyone.”

One thing’s certain. Come cold water or high fever, Decker will be at the starting line raring to go.