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Tom Cooney
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Tom Cooney is a great race director and I’m sure he’ll do a great job with the Hawaiian Ironman. I’ve seen him at a lot of races around the Chicago area and I’m always amused at how he works on race day. He’s the kind of guy who gets out there and does whatever it takes to make the race run well.

For example, at a duathlon a few years ago, right after the start there were a bunch of competitors and spectators blocking the road where the first wave was about to run through. I thought to myself, “This is going to be bad”, but a few seconds later, Cooney was there getting everyone off the road, getting his guys there to keep the road clear, and putting up barriers. He just takes care of business.

One year at the Chicago Triathlon, he was riding a bicycle leading the way for the lead runner. He was on his walkie-talkie and was weaving all over the road distracted by his conversation. He almost hit the curb and a sewer grate, but kept his bike upright and kept the race going.

I did a race a few years back at a horse stable near Chicago where Tom was the race director. There was a lot of open land for riding horses around the stable with some very steep, short hills. The race was a mountain bike duathon, run-bike-run. The guy who owned the stable, and who conceived of the race, was a triathlete and he wanted to have a triathlon on his property. The only problem was that there was no place to swim on the property – except for a small pond that was right next to a barn and a fenced in feeding corral. Before the race, Tom Cooney and the property owner asked the competitors (about 20 of us showed up for the race that first year) if we wanted to do a triathlon. They brought us to a barn, which was on a hill, and showed us how the triathlon would work. There were no course maps or coned off areas. Tom was simply pointing in the distance and saying things like “Just follow the fence and turn right at the old tractor, then go about …”. We were to run around property, swim across the 50-yard pond, get on our bikes and ride around the hillier areas, then do the run/swim again. Only three of us chose to include the swim because the pond was brown and murky. We also had to swim with our running shoes on because it was pretty far from the pond to the transition area. Tom told us “Just don’t swallow any water”.

That was one of the most fun races that I’ve ever done. Sure the water was gross, but it was an adventure. By the way, the winner of the triathlon was the brother of Cameron Windoff. I forget his name – and I may have my races mixed up because there were other mountain bike duathlons at that horse stable. But there was never another scummy-pond triathlon at that location.
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Re: Tom Cooney [Bru] [ In reply to ]
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Indeed, congratulations to Tom. I have had the pleasure of meeting him a few times over the years and seen him at work at races. IMH is in great hands. Even more so, that backing Tom up will be Graham Fraser and Grag Welch.

As Dan noted in his editorial both Tom and Graham are detail oriented RD's: Cones-and-Barriers kind of guys. As for Welch he will no doubt handle athlete issues, both pro and age-group extraordinarily well. I can only see IMH getting better with these changes.

The 25th anniversery IMH race should be a special one. Let's hope that it is one for the record and memory books. With these three men in charge, I am sure that it will be.


Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog
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