Jason Pretty was announced as the recipient of the 2025 Gerry Donovan Award at Triathlon NL’s recent AGM. The award is in recognition of the passion, leadership, commitment, volunteerism, and performance displayed by Gerry as an athlete and leader in our sport. Triathlon NL is happy to recognize Jason for his contributions to triathlon over many years.
Jason is a keen competitor in triathlon. He is a 20X Ironman finisher and continues to race multiple Ironman events each year including Ironman Texas in 2025 and will participate in his 2nd Ironman World Championships in Nice, France this coming September. He raced the Ironman World Championships in Kona in 2024.
Jason’s passion for the sport of triathlon is endless. He is continuously upgrading his knowledge through coaching courses and has expert knowledge of all gadgets, bikes, and triathlon gear. Jason follows and participates in everything triathlon here in the province and attends races all over the world. He is responsible for stepping in nearly 10 years ago and ensuring the continuation of the St. John’s Tri and Kids Of Steel (KOS) events. He is both a trained coach and a technical official for triathlon in Canada.
Jason has been the race director of the St. John’s Tri and KOS events since 2016. He has been the organizer of the “Monday night” bike rides for many years. He is a founder of one of the best triathlon clubs (in terms of athlete performance) in Canada with over 80 active members. He organizes numerous events within the club and promotes triathlon for all ages. He serves on the Board of Triathlon NL. Jason has privately coached many athletes over the last number of years in addition to being the head coach for the Rock Racing Triathlon Club (RRTC). Under his guidance, RRTC finished 2nd of all Ironman clubs for similar sized clubs.
In addition to volunteering countless hours for his own events (St. John’s Tri and KOS) Jason also volunteers at other provincial triathlon events, sometimes as a race official. He also helps out in other sports such as road racing where he often serves in the difficult role of marshal. All of his time for the development and operation of the RRTC club is volunteered. He has created so many opportunities for our athletes by applying for grants, establishing corporate deals for products and training plans to make things just a little more feasible in a such a high cost sport. Many athletes locally can be found using his elite, barely used hand me downs that he so generously gives without a second thought.
Jason is an excellent resource for event organizers and athletes on all things triathlon, from course layouts to bike selection. He was highly involved with making our local St. John’s an international qualifier for the ITU giving the opportunity to many local athletes to race on an international level. Over the years, Jason organized adventure races and off road triathlons. He is always looking for new opportunities to bring other events and opportunities to the NL triathlon scene.
Jason has been participating in triathlon events for 35 years. His first local triathlon was in 1990 and he has been competing in Ironman races for 25 of those years starting in 2000.
Congratulations Jason!
