Alex Banville
- Kinesiologist
- Professional Bike Fitter
- Competitive Triathlete
Where it all began
Already very competitive at a young age, Alex grew up playing high-level hockey up until grade 11. Having done a few years of Cross Country, Alex decided to join the Ottawa Lions and started focusing on short-track events. A year later, he signed up for a local triathlon race with friends for fun. Although he never enjoyed long-distance events, the challenges triathlon was bringing resonated with him, so he decided to take on Triathlon as his main sport ever since. It first started by doing local events for many summers with friends and family but after doing a training camp with Craig Alexander, 5x World Champion, he decided that it was what he wanted to pursue and take on seriously. Since then, Alex enjoys and thrive in long-distance events. Taking on 70.3 and Full-Ironman distance to Ultra-Trail running, he is always looking for the next challenge that will bring him out of his comfort zone.
Triathlon
Since Alex started pursuing triathlon seriously, he had amazing race opportunities bringing him to different continents. In 2017, he represented Canada at the ITU World Championship in Rotterdam for his age Category 20-24. This was his last short-distance triathlon race before transitioning to longer events. At 21 years old, Alex was the youngest athlete to ever complete the Swissman Xtreme Triathlon: a point-to-point triathlon adventure starting in the southern part of Switzerland, leading over three mountain passes to the central part of Switzerland with 5750m of total elevation gain. A few years later he also participated at the Canadaman, a recent addition to the Xtri World races happening in the Lac-Mégantic region. Summer of 2018, Alex also decided to take on Ultra-Trail running and jumped right in the deep end with one of the world’s toughest ultramarathons. The Canadian Death Race is a 125km trail course passing over three mountain summits with over 17,000 feet of total elevation change and a major river crossing. For his first-ever Ultramarathon, he finished in 18h35 putting himself in 45th/222 overall and 6/29 in the 20–29 age category. With the covid pandemic putting all racing to an alt, Alex is still very much focused and dedicated to qualifying for his professional license when racing resume.
Academics
Alex currently holds two degrees; a Bachelor of Health Sciences and a Bachelor of Science specialized in Human Kinetics. While studying Human Kinetics, Alex developed a passion for sports physiology and anatomy. In his last year, Alex had the chance to do his internship with James where he shadowed and started learning about the science and art of Bike Fitting. Alex is looking to pursue a career related to sports performance and the opportunity of gaining more experience and working under James is a great step in that direction.