TSP23: The 1983 Los Angeles Ricoh Ironman

·38 min·2 clips

The Ricoh Los Angeles Ironman had 139 starters, 59.5-degree Pacific water, and 46 swimmers pulled from the course.

The episode starts with the gun about to go off. A race narrator sets the beach scene, explains the self-seating start, and follows W.F. McCarthy as he leads the swim field toward the end of the water leg. The course does not stay simple for long. The Ricoh Ironman has been badly rerouted, with a triangular swim, an inland bike leg over hills, mountains, and dales, and a run shortened to 20 miles after permit misunderstandings forced a change from the original Beverly Hills plan. Cold water hangs over everything. The narrator talks through the switch to a mandatory wetsuit below 65 degrees, the daily ocean swims used to prepare, and the full kit with legs, arms, and hood that made April 27 feel like a real commitment. The bike course gets the same blunt treatment. Two weeks before race day, a course ride turns ugly at about 50 miles, where a steep winding climb brings the rider to a stop, a bike gets pushed, and a mental note is made to buy a 26-tooth gear. The run looks better on paper. It is described as sharp and up and down, and the magnificent homes along the route make it feel more like a strange tour than a routine endurance race. Race morning is hectic. Parking is thin, bags get dumped into a pile, announcements call triathletes toward the start area, and thermal gear has to be wrestled on before the short walk to the beach. The surf is rough. About 139 triathletes face five-foot waves, and the front of the race has to stay honest just to keep moving in the right direction. The episode keeps stressing that open water is not a place to put your head down and drift. The smarter swimmers work together, and the leaders keep checking their line while the rest of the field spreads out behind them. The finish settles the whole thing down. Scott Tinley wins the men's race in record time, looking as if he'd done nothing more strenuous than walk the dog around the block, with Dave Scott taking second and Jeff Tinley coming in third for an extraordinary one-tree finish for the Tinley family. The whole piece plays like a remembered broadcast and a race report at the same time. It moves through start-line nerves, route changes, kit choices, and final results without pretending any of those details are small. It stays close to the practical stuff because that is where the history lives. The show keeps circling back to the cold water, the altered course, and the awkward beauty of early Ironman logistics. It never sounds cleaned up. It sounds like someone who still remembers why all of it mattered.

As heard by us

A rerouted Ironman told through beach starts, cold water, and the details that keep the race vivid.

The piece reads like a race account before it reads like history, which is the right order for it. It keeps the beach start, the rerouted course, the cold-water nerves, and the practical race notes in plain view, so early Ironman feels improvised without turning messy.

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Why you'd press play

You want the Ironman details that make the start line feel cold.

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