Here’s something loooong overdue. A breakdown of the rest of Ben Bright's 1992 season. I promised this episode when Luke and I did TSP14. About the 1992 Nice Triathlon.

Ben was a role model for me. As I was also planning to have a triathlon adventure in France. Then I'd come back to the UK and regale my BTS team-mates with how epic it was. And how epic I was. 

I think Ben raced 13 times in Europe in 1992. Not a huge schedule. Most triathletes based in France do more. Maybe up to 20 races. But I might have missed one or two that the mags don’t show. 

And this was also a time when we raced often and all distances. Peaking and tapering wasn’t so much of a thing. We raced near-weekly and built fitness from race to race.

But this is also a story of an adventure of a young athlete in a far away land. A subject that I debate at the end of the episode. Is this still an experience that young triathletes dream of?

https://thestreakpodcast.com/podcast/25

Stage 3 of the 1995 France Irontour was the Team Time Trial in Vichy. As an athlete, this is my absolute favourite format. I love the hard effort, working out a strategy and ultimately the team work involved to do well.

On paper Assystem, with Pigg, Riccitello and Metters showing good form on Stages 1 and 2, were probably stronger than St. Quentin. But don’t count out the Fit For Fun Germans. They were a solid bike team and with 6 athletes from the same nation, maybe they’d trained a lot together.

But paper isn’t the road. And St.Quentin were the reigning french national TTT champions. The Vichy stage ended up being close. Very close!

https://thestreakpodcast.com/podcast/the-1995-france-irontour-as-it-happened

Stage 2 of the 1995 France Irontour was in Bescancon on Monday 21st August. Simon Lessing was leading after Stage One. Of course. 

But this stage was an opportunity for the attackers and the bike daredevils to put Lessing under pressure.

Mike Pigg was certainly planning something. And an on-form again Ben Bright would surely be happy to help.

Let’s hear what happened!

https://thestreakpodcast.com/podcast/the-1995-france-irontour-as-it-happened

Stage 1 of the 1995 France Irontour took place in Strasbourg, in the east of France on Sunday 20th August. 

The questions the pundits were asking were: Will Simon Lessing be as dominant as in 1994? Or will multiple contenders show themselves?

The distances were: a 1500m swim in the Baggersee lake. A 40km draft-legal bike into town and back twice. And a 3 lap 10km mixed-surface run.

Here’s how it went.

https://thestreakpodcast.com/podcast/the-1995-france-irontour-as-it-happened

Yesterday I did a podcast about the 1993 and 1994 editions. So here’s a preview of the 1995 race. It’s a quick translation of an article that appeared in the August 1995 issue of Triathlete (FR). 

The main body of the article is an interview with Carole Gally. The FIT organiser. Then there’s side bars showing the jerseys on offer, the details of the stages and the composition of the 10 teams. Even though some of the line-ups changed before race day.

https://thestreakpodcast.com/podcast/the-1995-france-irontour-as-it-happened

You know by now that I’m a huge France Iron Tour nerd. So here’s a podcast series about the 1995 race. The 2nd official version. I’m going to release one episode per day this week. Until I’ve covered all the stages. And then drawn some conclusions in the final episode. What does it all mean for modern triathlon?

To give you some back-story, the first episode in this series will be a re-mastered, re-mixed, deluxe-vinyl box set of TSP7 and TSP8. With some newly-recorded bonus tracks. Part two will then preview the stages and introduce the teams taking part.

I used 5 magazine articles to write this series. A race preview and a detailed race report from Triathlete (FR). A diary piece written by Jimmy Riccitello for 220 in the UK. And Ian Sweet’s preview column in 220 and his overview for Inside Triathlon in the USA.

https://thestreakpodcast.com/podcast/the-1995-france-irontour-as-it-happened

Today I will explain the TSP podcast re-launch that I’m doing. And tell you how Mark Allen re-freshed his career in the winter of 88-89.

I’m also back on Instagram and YouTube after short breaks there. So let’s also keep the vintage triathlon chat going on those platforms.

Other changes at TSP include:

• Upcoming episodes on modern triathlon.
• A link to podcast scripts in the show-notes.
• A Buy Me A Coffee link above. For those who would like to support the project. Obviously there’s no obligation to do this. And at the moment everything we do will still be available to everybody.

Speak to you again soon. Ross.

https://thestreakpodcast.com/podcast/0

Today we are watching and commenting on the 1990 Nice Triathlon video that’s on YouTube. It was probably the first Nice race that Luke and I saw on VHS. IMO. It’s the best English-language triathlon video on YouTube. Fullstop.

The scripted commentary by Sarah Springman and Ian Sweet is ace. And some big athletes were coming off successful 1989 seasons. Ready to go again. Of course. There’s the usual tangents into iconic equipment and previous races.

https://thestreakpodcast.com/podcast/26

This episode is Part 1 of a two-parter about Season Openers. The traditional races in the late-1980s that let us know that the tri-season had started. Both domestically and internationally.  

The idea came from recently leafing through two triathlon magazines that had significance to my life. That brought back waves of nostalgia from the time when I first got interested in triathlon.

These season opener races were important for the athletes. To validate their fitness after a winter of training. But for the magazine readers. These race reports were all we had. Before Eurosport or live streams or YouTube. 

This is how we got to understand the racing and to learn about the athletes. In articles written by familiar names like CJ Olivares Junior, Chip Rimmer, Richard Graham or Terry Mulgannon.

There’d be backstory, play by play race commentary, athlete profiles and a discussion of what the results meant. Therefore building up a season-long narrative to follow along with.

We’d find out if the Big 4 and Mike Pigg were still at the top. And who were the up and coming athletes? As nobody was vlogging or uploading their breakfast to instagram.

And via the excellent photography that accompanied the articles we also got to see the new bikes and kit.

So have a listen. And learn more about the 1988 Lanzarote Triathlon, the Gold Coast World Cup and the Swindon Triathlon in the UK.

In 1988 Valerie Silk and her Ironman company added two more franchise races to their roster. Ironman Europe in Roth. And Ironman Australia in Forster-Tuncurry. That brought the total number to six. With Hawaii, Canada, Japan and New Zealand.

However, the first Silk-sanctioned race outside of Hawaii had already come and gone. It was the Ricoh Los Angeles Ironman. In 1983. In this episode we’ll dive into that race. And go over some vital Hawaii Ironman backstory. That sets up a few more episodes about the race.

https://thestreakpodcast.com/podcast/23