Ramsay Newsroom

Participants aged 7 to 73 banded together for patients in need – with the annual event raising a total of $1.89m since it started 10 years ago.

Seven-year-old Makayla ‘Nugg’ Maloney was just one of the all-female athletes who ran the kids triathlon (50m swim, 2km bike ride and 500m fun) while Ramsay staff nationally also teamed up to run, walk, skip, ride, scoot and saunter various length triathlons.

National Breast Cancer Foundation (NBCF) Chief Executive Officer Professor Sarah Hosking said the fundraiser would support life-changing research projects to help the one in 8 women diagnosed with breast cancer in Australia.

One of the projects with Dr Brigid Lynch from Cancer Council Victoria, is investigating whether wearable technology has the potential to get women to be more active.

Dr Lynch’s research tackles this from two angles - the impact of exercise on preventing breast cancer and how exercise can help women going through treatment cope better and make the treatment more effective.

Our goal is zero breast cancer deaths for 2030 – NBCF

“There’s a lot of evidence to support the benefits of exercise. I think it’s fantastic that something so easy and accessible, like going for a walk or run, can have such powerful health benefits for women,” said Dr Lynch.

Another NBCF project that benefited from TriPink is the Edith Cowan University WA project, evaluating whether aerobic exercise can reduce tumour growth, improve quality of life and improve the health of muscle, bone, heart and lungs.

Experts all agree that exercise is one of the best weapons in the arsenal against the killer disease.

In a meta-analysis of 22 cohort studies, The Canadian Medical Association Journal recently found that physical activity had the single strongest effect on “reducing the risk of breast cancer recurrence and death”.

And a recent report from the World Cancer Research Fund also found vigorous exercise like cycling or running cut the risk of post-menopausal breast cancer by 10% compared to the least active women Professor Hosking thanked TriPink participants in helping to combat breast cancer.

“When the NBCF started in 1994, over 20 years ago, the five-year survival rate for breast cancer was 76%. Today the five year survival rate is 90%.

Our vision is to make the survival rate from breast cancer 100% and we are working towards a goal of zero deaths from breast cancer by 2030.

“Thanks to research and events like the Ramsay TriPink we have made significant progress, but the there’s still plenty of work left to do,” said Professor Hosking.