Origin
The Ironman was originated in 1978 when an astronaut, John Collins,
trying to settle the argument of which athletes were more complete proposed to combine three existing races into one, all at once. The winner of this new race would be considered an “Ironman”. The first editions of this race, that today is one of the most spectacular sport challenges faced by the human race, were held in Waikiki but then they were moved to Kona, on Hawaii’s Big Island.
The Ironman World Championship takes place in Hawaii every year but many other Ironman races are organized as qualifying sessions for this World Championship. To date, in 2009, about 21 Ironman races take place in different countries in the world such as Australia, Canada, Spain, United States, Southafrica, China, Switzerland, France, New Zealand, Brazil, among others. All the Ironman races are regulated by the World Triathlon Corporation (WTC). The only Ironman held in Latinamerica is Brazil which I will be attending.
Ironman today
Many people consider this sport as the most difficult sport in world sport history. It is a very demanding race that drives participants to the edge of their physical as well as mental endurance. Although some thousand athletes compete on an Ironman race throughout each year, most of them just run to beat an specific time as a personal challenge or just to be able to cross that finish line even though it takes as long as the 17 hour time limit to do it (this is clearly my case!).
Some additional information
World population is estimated today at about 6,700 millions. A very rough calculation based on the number of Ironman competitions that have been held in the 30 years of the race’s creation shows that, in the whole world, there are less tan 50,000 persons that have crossed the finish line of one of them (source http://www.escueladetriatlon.com.ar/). This represents less than 0.0007% of the world’s population or, in simpler words, one out of every 135,000 persons have crossed this line.In Peru, Ironman finishers, as are called the ones that are able to complete an Ironman competition, account for less than 50 persons. Being such a small group I’ll probably write their names on a later post for everyone of them deserves being mentioned. These figures show that one out of every 580,000 peruvians have crossed the finish line. I’m not sure if the statistics are encouraging or not but they surely show how hard the challenge is.
It is common to hear from the ones than have a little experience in an Ironman that the competition is 30% physical and 70% mental. They also say that the ugly part is the previous hard training and that the race day, despite the acute pain, the cramps and the willingness to quit at each additional step, feels like a celebration.
Finally, you also hear that once you cross that finish line your live is changed forever. You’ll never be the same. Discover yourself, know your limits and overcome them is what really makes you an Ironman.
Let’s hope they´re right!
I’ll leave you with a motivational video reel of the competition so you can have a brief idea of the race day atmosphere and the effort required to finish one of these races:
I would also like to share with you a couple more videos. The first one is from 1982 and shows how a professional athlete managed to cross the finish line.
I have saved the best one for the last. A truly inspiring story for anyone, whether you want to participate on an Ironman or not. Stories like this one makes us realize that anything is possible and that if we try hard enough we can accomplish anything we want.
Our goal: their future
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