Monger: Comic Relief triathlon the "perfect scenario"

Double amputee Billy Monger has said the opportunity to test himself in a gruelling 140-mile triathlon to raise money for Comic Relief gave him renewed focus on his fitness after letting things slide during lockdown.

In 2019, Monger contested the Euroformula Open Championship as well as its sister winter series but, as was the case for many junior drivers, the global pandemic cancelled his plans for 2020.

Conceding he had slipped into "bad habits" throughout lockdown, the 21-year-old, who lost both his legs in a British F4 accident in 2017, said the opportunity to push himself by hiking, cycling and kayaking the 140-mile 'Ironman' distance was the "perfect scenario".

"It's been in a lot of ways the absolute perfect scenario for someone like myself," he told BBC Breakfast.

"Not being able to compete and race during 2020 and what is looking like 2021 potentially as well due to the pandemic, it has been really tough to not have that focus.

"I know for myself, my real fitness motivation came a few months after the first lockdown where the belly came out and I let myself slip because I didn't have that project to aim for and to motivate me. I just slipped into bad habits and a bad routine.

"A few months of good training before I even started this project got me back into decent shape but this is going to put me in the best shape I have ever been in in my life.

"I'm excited to see the results at the end and hopefully cross that finish line in one piece."

Asked if he was looking forward to once again having fans cheering him on, an experience he sorely missed last year without racing, Monger added: "That's definitely what has been getting me through, the fact I know the British public are going to get behind me because it's such an amazing cause.

"Comic Relief are an awesome bunch of guys and they do such great work so I've had a chance to briefly see - we've been in lockdown, but I've had a chance to see one of the projects and I can just tell the difference it will make to people and the difference it will make in their lives.

"For me, that has given me all the motivation I will ever need."

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