Karen Smyers

Karen Smyers is a triathlete from the United States, born on 1 September 1961 in Corry, Pennsylvania. She won the ITU Triathlon World Championship in 1990 and 1995 and was also the 1995 Ironman World Champion, and she was inducted into the Triathlon Hall of Fame in January 2009. She was captain of her high school swim team, made All-State in swimming and captained her high school gymnastics team. In the 1980s she worked as a computer programmer and consultant while racing, living in Somerville, Massachusetts, where she finished seventh and third at the Greater Wilkes-Barre Triathlon in 1987 and 1988 and won the Bay State Triathlon for a fourth consecutive year in 1988. She was diagnosed with thyroid cancer in 1999.