Richard Ussher
Richard Arland Ussher is a New Zealand multisport athlete. He has represented his country at the 1998 Winter Olympics and is a five-time winner of the Coast to Coast multisport race, and formerly held the New Zealand Ironman-distance Triathlon record at 8hr 2min 15sec. Since 2015, he has been the race director for the Coast to Coast.
Ussher was born and raised in Wellington and attended Onslow College and Hutt Valley High School.
He represented New Zealand in the freestyle skiing event of moguls at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan. He finished 25th.
Ussher is married to Finnish multisport competitor Elina Ussher and they formed Adventure racing team Adventure Sport NZ, which won the Abu Dhabi Adventure Challenge in 2007, 2008, and 2009. The team also consisted of Aaron Prince and Gordon Walker the first year. Jarad Kolar and Jay Henry the second year and Marcel Hagener and Nathan Fa'avae the third year. The same team of Richard Ussher, Elina Ussher, Marcel Hagener and Nathan Fa'avae won the race again in 2010 as Team Thule.
After his Coast to Coast win in 2008 Ussher announced his retirement from multisport to focus on Ironman Triathlon events. He cited a lack of professional athletes in multisport providing few challenging competitors, but later returned to multisport. In 2015, he took over as race director at the Coast to Coast from the event's founder, Robin Judkins.
