Retired U.S. Navy officer John Collins says he had no idea that someday the Ironman triathlon he helped found in 1978 would be an international phenomenon. After all, it was a taxi driver who won the first Ironman. And Collins admits he consumed beer and chili while competing in the inaugural Ironman, according to his biography found on Ironman.com.
Today, the Ironman World Triathlon Championship has a major corporate sponsor and is broadcast on TV each year.
Collins and his wife, Judy, had taken part in triathlons when Collins was stationed in San Diego. The 1974 Mission Bay Triathlon, considered the very first triathlon, included the Collinses and their two children.
After receiving orders to Hawaii, Collins and his family continued participating in endurance sports. During a race awards banquet one evening, he and some buddies rehashed their ongoing argument of who was in better shape — swimmers or runners. Then Collins mentioned a Sports Illustrated article about how champion cyclist Eddy Merckx had been tested for the highest oxygen intake. Cycling was tossed into the debate, and a plan was conceived during the banquet to test which of the three specialties would finish a race first, the biography said.
While the table of buddies took to the idea, Collins stepped up to the microphone and announced his makeshift plan, saying that a race would begin at 7 a.m, and the first to finish would be the “Ironman,” a reference used for the Navy shipyard runners who could run 20 miles at the same pace as they would run two.
On the day of the race, Feb. 18, 1978, 15 competitors showed. Out of those, a dozen would finish. Collins handed each a sheet with a few simple rules. At the end of the page it read: “Swim 2.4 miles, ride 112, run 26.2, brag for the rest of your life.”
Gordon Haller, 27, was the first to earn that right, finishing the event in 11 hours, 46 minutes. Collins finished in a little more than 17 hours.
According to a USA Today Web article, runner-up John Dunbar, a Navy SEAL, had the opportunity to win the first Ironman, but toward the end of the race he ran out of water. His supporters gave him beer instead.
The next year, 15 more participated in the race, and Sports Illustrated wrote about it, according to Collins’ biography. In 1980, Collins was transferred and handed the responsibilities (a shoe box with the race entries in it) to Valerie Silk, who in 1981 decided to move the race from congested Oahu to wide-open Kona on Hawaii’s Big Island. The year before, ABC’s “Wide World of Sports” had begun broadcasting the epic of exercise.
But the race’s defining moment came two years later. With millions of Americans tuned into the coverage, college student Julie Moss neared the finish line, but began to stumble and fall. Like a prizefighter, she continued to rise to her feet. But her body kept crumpling to the ground.
Just yards from the finish, men from the crowd tried to stabilize her. But she refused an escort to the finish line. Finally, her nearest female competitor passed her and won the race.
Disappointed but undeterred, Moss crawled to the finish line. From that moment on, Ironman became legendary and continues to grow in popularity.
