Well in my book Michellie won Sydney. I would not count the doper Brigitte McMahon as the gold medalist.

Perhaps in my mind even though I am Canadian, I would have preferred to see Simon Lessing win the gold at Sydney, but he was a totally marked man for the entire race. Simon won everything outside the Olympics and all kinds of long course race wins outside of Kona (Nice, Alpe d'Huez, Lake Placid etc). Michellie also won at Kona.

Macca being left off of the Australian Olympic team.

(not exactly what you were asking but along the same lines)

This may change, but Javier Gomez has won everything he's tried to except Olympic gold. That, a Kona victory, maybe an ITU LD victory and he would have quite literally every base covered.

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IG: idking90

Greg Bennett never winning an Olympic medal or winning World Champs.

Hamish Carter never winning world champs, especially when you consider who he came 2nd to and the circumstances surrounding those 2nds.

Harrop also gets the nod for that silver. Heartbreaking for Australia to get denied back to back golds in the women's race by extremely suspect performances.

Mike Pigg in Kona.

Andreas Raelert in Kona (four podiums).

Simon Whitfield never winning ITU World Champs.

Siri, Barb, or Sheila never winning an Olympic medal

Cameron Brown in Kona (four podiums, like Raelert)

Eneko in Kona (five? other world titles across LD and XTerra)

There's a long list. Hamish Carter never winning World Champs would be my #1 if I had to pick.

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"Non est ad astra mollis e terris via." - Seneca | rappstar.com | FB - Rappstar Racing | IG - @jordanrapp

  
Maybe not much of a consolation, but amazing performance nontheless - Hamish did get his world title at Xterra in 2006.


I think Siri's back story re missing out in the selection race and never actually competing at an Olympics, yet dominating those other girls that year is tough too! (disclaimer I've obviously heard first hand the passion she puts into telling that story...haha)

I think your list is really comprehensive, but perhaps Hamish and Simon get "off the hook" on account of winning the sport's biggest prize (the Olympic gold). Heck if you have won that, you're set and every other race (rightly or wrongly) in the mind of the general public is secondary.

I know that never winning a World Championship did give Simon *SOME* angst. I actually think that Steve may be more right than he thinks about Hamish deriving solace from his XTerra title. Simon was pretty motivated after London to make a push for a 70.3 world title. He lost that fire due to some personal stuff, but I do think he really wanted one. I think that having won the Gold so early in his career alleviated that somewhat, but he also had a run of pretty bad luck at Worlds as well, and I think he certainly wanted to add those stripes to his palmares. It's too bad that Vancouver had WC the same year as the Games. I think had Vancouver held WC in a different year, Simon would likely have won it. He had a knack for performing on a big stage, and WC in front of the home crowd would have been huge (look at the World Cup the year prior). But he knew he couldn't be 100% for both Vancouver and Beijing, and he planned accordingly. I think Bevan going silver at '08 WC and bronze in Beijing was one of the most impressive doubles we've seen in a long time. That's a long time to hold that sort of fitness. Though Bevan always was a "strong man."

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"Non est ad astra mollis e terris via." - Seneca | rappstar.com | FB - Rappstar Racing | IG - @jordanrapp

Mike Pigg and Kona. Aussie Brad Bevan and I think never winning Worlds. Emma Carney Aussie from going long. Tborn Sindalle winning Kona after figuring out his heat issue. Miss you thunder bear and your Polar. Peter Reid winning more Kona's.

Simon Lessing not winning Olympics and Kona

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Francois-Xavier Li @FrancoisLi
"We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing." George Bernard Shaw
http://www.swimrunfrance.fr
http://www.worldofswimrun.com

I think that's got to be the winner. I mean, that guy won everything at every distance, but managed to not get those two biggest titles.

Susan Williams never going up to Ironman distance was a real shame. She dominated through HIM even after her comeback in her 40s post kids.

Gotta be Cameron Brown.

He was, and still is, SOOOOO good, yet he never quite cracked a win at Kona. He's won IMNZ close to 100 times, has the record as the oldest IM winner, and he isn't finished yet. He flies under the radar but still smokes very fast times.

IF it's not Cam then surely it would be Hamish Carter, another Kiwi. Sure he won an Olympic Gold and was ranked number one for many years on the trot, but he never got the World Champs win. He was cheated when Tim Don didn't show up for drug testing and got a stand down, but didn't get stood down until AFTER the world champs where he narrowly beat Hamish for the win.

Both Kiwi's are awesome in their own right but never managed to get to the top rung of the ladder on the day (Hamish's Oly Gold Medal excepted)

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TriDork

"Happiness is a myth. All you can hope for is to get laid once in a while, drunk once in a while and to eat chocolate every day"

Anyone remember Rob Barrel??

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rob_Barel

Not quite in the same leage as others mentioned, amazing he went back and made the olympics at age 42

Here is an old ST interview with him from way back in 2001.

http://www.slowtwitch.com/...interview/barel.html


Maurice

I think we could include Welchie. He won Kona but was the fastest guy at any distance at the peak of his career and developed his heart problems before triathlon made it's debut in Sydney. I reckon he would have won a WC at any distance with another year or two.

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Kurt Luoni
US Sales Manager
Orca Wetsuits

Uh. Welchie DID win FOUR world titles. At all distances.

ITU Triathlon World Championships (1990), The Ironman World Championship (1994), the ITU Duathlon World Championships (1993) and the Long Course Triathlon World Championship (1994).

Not sure what else you'd add in there... There wasn't really anything else for him to win.

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"Non est ad astra mollis e terris via." - Seneca | rappstar.com | FB - Rappstar Racing | IG - @jordanrapp

As an outsider into the thinking of a pro triathlete, I would have thought that winning the Olympics would result in less drive/desire to win WC's, but I can see how winning a WC would serve as another round of validation with peers. The outside world may not care that much, but I see how being the strong man vs your peers at WC's would be very rewarding to show that the Olympic win was not a one off (example the questionable wins by both Brigitte McMahon and Kate Allen). So thanks for that view. Totally understandable.

2x. For a man that was so completely dominant (from all I hear) to miss out on both is such a shame.

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Aaron Bales
Lansing Triathlon Team

 Viktor Zymtsev has 12 ironman distance victories to his name as well as a handful of top 5 finishes. He is 42 and is still dangerous. He performs poorly at Kona and is Ukrainian.

Lessing only really had one crack at the Olympics and that was after his run of ITU dominance was kind of finished. Think if triathlon had been an Olympic sport throughout his prime there's absolutely no doubt he'd have won a gold. Not sure he was ever a favourite for Kona - he was very good on his day in IM, but never as dominant as in ITU and had some back/hamstring/Achilles problems in his latter career which led to quite a few DNFs in long distance.

If Gomez doesn't win an Olympic gold next year that would be a bigger miss I think, for a guy who has won 4 ITU World Championships (not to mention a 70.3 and an Xterra WC) and who will have had 3 cracks at the Olympics. If he moves up to IM and wins Kona then that would probably offset it of course!

Lessing's one take at Lake Placid in 2004 well after he was past his peak is still the course record. If this was him 8 years after his prime, I'd hate to see him at his peak.

He needs to tweak his formula, if you know what I mean.

Can you fill me in on what exactly makes the Athens gold medalist's performance suspect or in fact justify indirectly comparing it to the performance of McMahon, a proven EPO-doper?

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if you can read this
YOU'RE DRAFTING!

" Aussie Brad Bevan and I think never winning Worlds"

Nailed it. Brad Bevan was unbeatable for a 3-4 year span in the mid-90's. Injuries are the only thing that derailed him

I've never heard of any talk about Kate's performance before. You usually get a 'sense' from how the the other girls and boys talk about them and they seem to only ever talk highly of Kate. The closest she got to a doping controversy was when that other dirty Austrian bitch knocked her off in New Plymouth (allegedly).

If there had been a Half-ironman/70.3 champs mid 90s then we might have seen Craig Walton, Spencer Smith, Chris Legh, and others make this non-drafting distance an exciting spectator sport fifteen years before Kienle.
SteveMc