I had the pleasure to interview Simon Lessing on his race at the 1993 Nice Triathlon where he pushed Mark Allen to the brink and tried to take the crown from the 9xchampion. Its a great story from the history of triathlon. The cool thing is that Mr. Lessing is still doing battle 14 years later. As some of you know he cleaned everyone’s clock aside from Craig Alexander at Clearwater showing that he can still be at the top of the game.
Fast forward a few years to Phuket… '96 I think… Mark Allen is now 38 and racing that series that those Australian brothers put together (Their names escape me). Anyway, Allen would surely be no match for all the speedsters in Phuket, right? Welch, Bevan, Simon, Spencer, Pigg… All the fast dudes were there.
In Allen’s last pro race he took out all the speedsters save Simon. Great race.
Mark Allen may be the greatest Triathlete of all time. He was always ready to race and have a killer instinct unlike almost anyone else who has ever raced.
Dev-what a great story. I had no idea that all that went on. Being USA based at the time I never realized how great SL really is. I was visiting some ski friends last year who loaned me some old French tri mags-Lo and behold, there is Simon with Molina and some other greats doing Iron Tour in France-and winning it! He is an incredible talent.