TSP24: Season Openers Part 1

·58 min·3 clips

Barry Vovodin and Mr. Yokoyama add $84,000 to the Gold Coast prize purse, lifting it to $234,000 Australian dollars.

Ross starts by admitting the publish schedule is uneven. With a day job, family, and other hobbies, he says he cannot commit to a weekly podcast, though he would love to and keeps trying. The topics wander too. He says he starts things he does not always finish, and he points to a few bigger triathlon stories still in the works, including part two of the Summer of Ben and the larger-history stories around the Iron War and Simon versus Spencer in the 1995 Bath Triathlon. Today takes a different turn. The episode is the first in a two-parter about season openers, those late-1980s races that signaled to listeners that tri-season had started both at home and abroad. The spark is magazine memory. Ross says the idea came from leafing through two old triathlon magazines recently that still mean a lot to him because they brought back waves of nostalgia from when he first got interested in triathlon. The July 1988 issue of Triathlete UK was the first triathlon magazine he ever bought, picked up at WH Smith on Slough High Street during his regular Thursday trip to collect his saved behind-the-counter copy of Athletics Weekly. That memory still hits. He remembers standing there stunned, holding it and counting his change to see whether he had enough for both magazines. From there, the archive opens up. Ross reads and paraphrases old race reporting, then moves through the names, places, and split times that show how the sport looked at the time. Lanzarote gets a long look. The race narrative follows Koop, Rukeda, Scott, Springman, De Roysche, Zvada, Billington, Moisey, and Oiterhagen through swim, bike, and run, right down to the moment a loose and playful puppy runs across the road and Koop keeps his rhythm anyway. It is vivid and a little ridiculous. That mix is the point, because the episode treats a silly interruption, a tired runner, and a cheque on the line as part of the same live race picture. Britain comes next. Ross then turns to the National Short Course Championship in Kent, where Harris cannot defend his title because of work, Brew wants revenge and a first title, Marabini wants another victory, and the presence of Cook, Koop, and Springman leaves no easy path to the podium while the season edges toward Wales and the flatter ground of Kent.

As heard by us

Old magazines become a sharp guide to how the late-1980s tri season began.

Ross uses a pile of old triathlon magazines to open a clear window onto the late-1980s season openers, where memory matters as much as results.

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Why you'd press play

For the day you want late-80s triathlon history unspooled through old magazine pages and race notes.

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