I pulled out my results booklets from 81-85. I lost the covers for 81, 82, but 83-83 indicated “Bud Light” Ironman Triathlon World Championship Hawaii” on the cover.

Prize money started in 1986 when an “anonymous” donor it up. In 1985 almost all of the pros raced Nice instead, as they offered priz money. Scott Tilley and Joanne Ernst won Hawaii that year.

the folks at IRONMAN say that in their collective memory, going back 10 years, the term with "Hawaiian" in front of it, was not used. so i'm wondering if it was ever used and i'm pretty sure it was. but i don't know with certainty, even tho there are references all over the internet.


Dan,

I don't know what it was called prior to roughly the late 80's - but I seem to recall in conversation that we referred to it as "Ironman Hawaii" - just as we referred to the other IM races around the world at the time via their geographical country location - Ironman Canada, Ironman Australia, etc . .

I raced at "Ironman Hawaii" in '89 and '93 and I don't seem to recall us going on and on about calling it a "World Championships" - just "Ironman Hawaii".

The name that seemed to be used more formally for the race in Hawaii at the time was the "Ironman Triathlon World Championships" (In fact - I was just in Kailua and the local historical sign at the Pier uses this name to refer to the race) - which was drawing criticism from from the then ITU now World Triathlon, in particular founding President of the ITU Les McDonald - I believe some for of legal action was taken by Les and the ITU against the then World Triathlon Corp. (WTC - owners of the race at the time) - wanting WTC to stop using the words "World" and or "Triathlon". They reached some form of "settlement" with the WTC - the WTC agreeing to drop the word "triathlon" from the title of the race and going forward the race being referred to as the Ironman World Championships.

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Pretty sure way before 1989 on the prize money, and it wasn't because of Nice either. The pros had been lobbying for $$ from about 1982, but Valerie had no interest, she was modeling the race after the Boston Marathon, which also had no prize money. But as running found out, without the dollars, even the long history and legacy of the Boston Marathon was not going to insure big and deep pro fields once the others started offering big $$. So that was her early mindset, come or not, she didn't really care.

But there was a San Diego guy that was an age grouper who owned a huge construction company, even built a huge beautiful house on Alli Drive for himself. From the very beginning he would have a party for all the pro athletes the week before, and it was a huge and lavish spread. He really took to the pros, and made friends with a lot of us. So he knew the plight of not having prize money in Kona, and sided with our interests. So one year( I think 83 or 84?) he called Valerie and told her he was going to sponsor the race with a $100k check, only condition was that it had to be a prize purse for the pros, and only that.

I suppose she could have refused, but it would have been a bad look, and of course a probable boycott of the race in the future if it got out she turned down free money. Kind of got rid of her last excuse, and the big marathons were all starting to offer up big money too, so the writing was on the wall. Even the olympics were letting in pros, and the whole amateur thing was crumbling left and right.

Anyway that is how I recall the order of events, but maybe dan has some more memories of what was going on at the time. This is what chaps me about the Ironman site, it should be one click to see old results, prize money distributions, and all the history at your fingertips. But it is still a dog of a site, and even if some info is there, it is not easy to find...

It's a great site if you want to find and register for a race.

Which...uh...I suppose is kind of the point.

Could they do an in-depth history? Sure. But I don't know whether that helps with what their primary mission statement is, either...

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Editor-in-Chief, Slowtwitch.com | Twitter

Monty, It's an event registration website. Not a history lesson :)

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E-DUB
Chief Janitor @Slowtwitch
Life is short. Dont be mad all the time.

dan, between the all-caps, the scare quotes, and the 'so-called,' i think any minute now you'll start accusing ironman of being 'woke.'

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https://lshtm.academia.edu/MikeCallaghan

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I first did Kona in Oct ‘82. Other than the Wide World of Sports and newspaper articles, I don’t remember anyone calling it HAWAIIAN IRONMAN WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP. Not sure where you came up with it.

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Team Zoot So Cal

That’s really amazing! I don’t know when I first heard of that mind-blowing race in Hawaii, but I feel the same shock and happiness now when I see that clip. I remember being absolutely blown away when I learned about its existence. (I learned years late— probably the early 90s!) It must be great for you to see that video.

ETA: wrt the name, we called it the Hawaii Ironman during my college years until my brother and few friends qualified for it. And then I called it the Ironman Championships. I think that was ‘98. After that year I reverted to the Hawaii Ironman name again. Ha ha!

Ironman might have been precluded from using “Hawaii” in its name for legal reasons.

If this helps at all, this is the commemorative finisher's award from 2003 (the 25th anniversary I think?), no mention of it being the "Hawaiian Ironman World Champs"

Yep, that was the 25th Anniversary race...

Interesting history of the Ironman. https://books.google.com/...20hawaii&f=false

First year with prize money: 1985. I was involved with Ironman in 1985 (race director of “The Original Hawaiian Triathlon” over the original course) and don’t remember this.
1986: Steve Drogan gave $100,000 to pay prize money 10 deep for male &female pros

Interesting interview of Valerie Silk by Scott Tinley:
http://www.trihistory.com/...ern-endurance-sports

None of these official race results have a cover that has "Hawaii" as part of the title name.
That's pretty good evidence as well.

And the format was: swim [5M = almost double IM] run [26M = a little short], bike [100M = also, a little short]

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
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Australia was running the full distance race from 1985(no race in 1986), 1989 when it raced as official ironman event, also the early Canadian & New Zealand races were shorter as the run was shortened to 30km and not the full 42km marathon as Hawaii was the only race allowed to do the full distance, 1985 IMNZ Scott MOLINA won with 07:40:49 (00:43:39 - 04:39:33 - 02:17:37). From 1988 NZ ran the full 42km, with some exceptions in later years with bike course reduced 90km etc.

The Great Lakes Triathlon 1985..I really miss hanging out in Forster.

I just love the age group names beside Molina, Browning, Glah, Leder (these guys overlap with my age group haha...love it when we were 18-24 and 25-29).

interesting stuff i did not know only kona was allowed the full run for some time

I did my first Kona in 1992. Before that in 1987 I did the Cape Cod Endurance race, a full IM distance and the RD was Dave McGillivary now the Boston Marathon RD.

This T-shirt is from 1984 when my uncle raced