For most Bowdoin student-athletes the summer is the offseason, a chance to recover, train and prepare for another year of competition. Ellie Saksena had something a little different on her summer schedule.

Saksena, a Bowdoin senior, placed third in the Mixed Relay at the 2026 USA Triathlon National Championships earlier this month in Milwaukee, earning a spot on Team USA and qualifying for the 2027 Triathlon World Championship Finals. She will represent the United States next September in Hamburg, Germany, where she will compete against some of the top triathletes from around the world.
At Bowdoin, Saksena competes year-round as a member of both the cross country and track & field teams, specializing in distance events. But her background in endurance sports extends well beyond running. She competed in her first triathlon at nine years old and has completed at least one every year since. Her appearance in Milwaukee was the 24th triathlon of her career.

"The most memorable part of competing in triathlons growing up was the early mornings with my mom," recalls Saksena. "She would drive me to competitions in the summer around 4am, long before the sun rose. We would drive through the sunrise, and watch it shine across the Nebraska plains as I try to digest as many bagels as I could stomach before the race."

The Mixed Relay features two men and two women, with each competitor completing a swim, bike and run before the four performances are combined for the team's final result. Competing among a pool of approximately 120 athletes at Nationals, Saksena helped her team to a third-place finish in their division.

Saksena has long been accustomed to competing against older athletes. With age groups determined by the age a competitor will turn by December 31, her late-November birthday has regularly made her one of the youngest in her division, an underdog role she has embraced throughout her triathlon career.

"Something that makes my training possible is my incredibly supportive family," says Saksena. "When they spectate, they have to run around the venue to see me and my family members will easily get in thousands of steps just from watching a race."

Saksena also credits the support of the Bowdoin community through the process.

"I partnered with Tina Chong to jump start a new program with time management and ADHD peer coaches at the Baldwin Center for Learning and Teaching to help other Bowdoin students balance their lives as complex humans achieving amazing things in and out of the classroom."
 
The 2027 Triathlon World Championship Finals will be held September 8–12, 2027, in Hamburg, but Saksena already has her sights set beyond Germany. In the coming years, including during her senior year at Bowdoin where she is also a double-major in English and Government & Legal Studies, she will continue training with the long-term goal of putting herself in position to compete in future Team USA Olympic Trials.

"I never would have imagined I would be able to compete in running at the college level let alone compete in triathlon at the international level," adds Saksena. "I carry a very process-oriented training plan and focus on what I can improve on."

"Triathlon has been a long-term project, something I chip away at and become better in small increments that don't really look like much, until I zoom out and woah… I'm competing at the highest level now!"