1992 Embrun Olympic Distance Triathlon
The Embrunman is still on my bucket-list. The goal would be to just get fit enough one year to enjoy a long day out in nature.
The Embrunman Triathlon was started in 1984. The distances the first year were 750m/30km/10km. Then increased to 1500m/70km/21km in 1985 and 4km/132km/42km in 1986. In 1987 they moved closer to the ironman standard with 5km/180km/42km. Seriously. 5-clicks of swimming!
They stuck with the same distances in 1988 before settling on 3800m/180km/42km in 1989. Finally the Col d’Izoard was first used in 1990, creating the super-tough course that is still used today.
They added an Olympic Distance race in 1988. In the 1989 race Yves Cordier had a bike crash which put him out of the first ITU Short Course World Championships in Avignon. He would have been one of the favourites. Instead he did some commentary for Canal+.
In 1991 the ITU launched their World Cup Series. The races were draft-free back then and Embrun was a stop on tour in 1991, 1992 and 1993. By 1997 the World Cup Series was draft-legal but Embrun was back on the docket.
Since 1990 the race has always been held on 15th August as it’s a French public holiday. Here’s all the Olympic Distance results.
I raced it in 1996 in the middle of a hectic Grand Prix season. It was something like my 15th race of the year. I swam and climbed well and descended and ran not so well. The following week I was on antibiotics with a throat infection. They worked though, as I had a solid September.
The article below about the 1992 Embrun Olympic Distance Triathlon is from the October 1992 issue of 220 Magazine. It’s written by founder and editor John Lillie. The race was one of the many Spencer Smith and Simon Lessing head to heads from the early to mid-1990s.
Images: 220 (UK) October 1992
Looking through my archives shows me that Simon seems to have come out on top most often. But Smudger had a few significant victories, including the 1993 Worlds in Manchester. Here in Embrun Spencer found the long, steep climbs and technical descents pretty tough.
Check out Scott Molina’s Lightspeed. You can see that he sometimes switches the GripShift from the tri-bars to the drops. He won the long-distance Embrunman the year before. He had a year-off triathlon in 1993 and then came back in 1994. Even returning to France to do the 1994 Iron Tour.
