This is one of my favourite old school Ironman’s not only because it is in Penticton but because of the sheer volume of total awesomeness racing in both the men’s and women’s fields…Now some of you may have heard Macca say that,in the modern era,people who have won multiple Ironman’s have nothing on the athletes in the old days because these days there are so many ironman’s around the world and the fields are “watered down”. I have agreed with him for years because in this era there were only 7 Ironman races around the word and 6 of them were part of a World Series meaning all the top guys showed up to all the races.If you won it meant you had to beat the top guys all the bloody time.This race shows that in spades.
Scott Tinley
Scott Molina
Ken Glah
Ray Browning
Dirk Aschmoneit
Todd Jacobs
Paul Huddle
PNF
Erin Baker
Jan Wanklyn
Lori Bowden
Paula Johnson
Tina Bischoff
KIm Isherwood (My Hong Kong hometown favourite)
Sister Madonna setting yet another age group record.
Erin baker sets the new Ironman run course world record
Tinley continues his bromance with Dave Kirk grabbing his ass cycling up Richter Pass.
Molina pulling a tire off the rim with his teeth
Three sets of ironman couples raced and all got in the top five
Erin Baker and Molina* PNF and Huddle Jan Wanklyn and Glah
A young Lori Bowden is the first Canadian.
Epic shit for old school tri-tragics like me.
I have said for years that Ray Browning is the forgotten man of Ironman and perhaps the most under rated of his era.He raced 23 Ironman’s and won 7 of them in an era,as I said above, where you had to race the best all the time.Only Dave Scott I believe matched his number of Ironman wins by the time Ray retired from racing.He is a hell of a nice guy as well.
Again,thank’s to the great man Steve King for having his library of VHS tapes digitized ( at considerable cost ) so we can watch them all again and introduce the newbies to some of the old school legends of the sport.
Ironman Canada 1990 - YouTube
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That’s fantastic, thanks for posting. I was there in 1990 watching that race after a summer work term in Alberta where myself and a few friends drove over to watch it and slept in the van every night. I ended up doing the race in 2000 and 10 times since. Can’t wait to watch that on the trainer later!!
I agree the pro triathletes from the late 80’s and up to mid 90’s were special. There is no doubt the top pros are faster now - even putting technology aside - but I will say it is astounding how Dave Scott, Mark Allen, Erin Baker and PNF took an amazing amount of time off the record times and to push the new frontier in leaps in bounds was very impressive. Dave Scott had such a belief in his ability that I remember him in an interview being very clear that he expects to go 8:09 in Hawaii when that time had never been done before. Yes, Mark Allen won the race, but I don’t think that time would have happened without Dave Scott.
It’s great to see Steve posting these.
I remember stumbling upon these races on TV when I was growing up and they were my first exposure to the sport and what triathlon / Ironman was.
Mike McCormick from Seattle as well, eh Nick?
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Mike gets his glory in 1991…I remember I was about to hit the Skaha Estate hills on my way out when Mike came running around the corner heading back to town.I was thinking “Who the hell is that guy?”. I think a lot of people wondered the same thing.
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Really cool. Thanks for bringing this back! Like you said, back then with fewer races each was an event. Even into the mid 2000s I used to devour ST race reports until races proliferated and the energy kind of dissipated.
Did I catch the Bonnie Durdie (sp?) raced 2 months pregnant? I tell my teenage kids that my generation was tougher, maybe I wasn’t misremembering after all, ha!
Makes me a little sad actually to see what Ironman Triathlon used to be compared to what it is now. Back then we had big sponsors, televised event on one of the big networks, all the big names at one of the most iconic events etc. Watching that made me feel things I haven’t felt in a long time! I don’t have the same feelings these days when I watch an event. Too bad really.