Triumph For Pigg Power
Here’s an article from Sports Illustrated. I used it for some research for TSP1: What Is The Streak Podcast? It’s about the 1987 Hilton Head USTS race. You can watch it on YouTube. And I’m currently writing some USTS history blog posts and podcast episodes.
There’s lots of back-story about Mike Pigg in there. And some info about women’s winner Kirsten Hanssen. And a great shot of Pigg’s bike. This is the aesthetic I used as a baseline for my vintage tri-bike build.
La Griffe de l’Effort
The best translation of La Griffe de l’Effort is probably The Signatue of Effort. Or maybe the Trademark of Effort. Although I’m not super happy with these. Even though I just workshopped it with my wife for 10 minutes.
They made custom club kits and special vests as prizes. Like the ones above on Isabelle Mouthon and Simon Lessing at the 1991 European Championships in Geneva, Mark Allen at the 1989 World Championships in Avignon and Philippe Methion at the 1991 French Championships in Versailles.
Below is Mark Allen wearing the full pant-suit version. And Erin Baker also getting her’s on the Avignon podium.
Images: Tri-Athlete (FR) 1989 Avignon Special Issue
By 1992 we were fully into the vest and Speedo times. The tri-suits that everybody was wearing in the mid-80s had disappeared by about 1989.
I don’t have extra information about the company to write a longer post. I just that I think the vests are cool. As I still race in a loose vest.
Tampa and the Nike Vest
Yesterday I brought the blog back. I’m going to write something most days. And record a podcast episode every Friday.
Today I’ve got a guest post from my brother, Luke. Like me, more than thirty years in the sport and still truckin’.
In 1989, just as we were getting sucked into the vortex of triathlon, our swimming club arranged a two week trip to Tampa in Florida. The whole family was going. The first week the squad would be staying with families and the second week would be spent exploring Florida with our parents.
I’m not sure how our parents envisioned this second week going, but we (me and Ross) were expecting it to be split 50/50 between theme parks and searching for ‘exotic’ triathlon equipment.
Although you could get triathlon specific equipment in the UK at the time, it was very limited and about 6 months to a year behind what we were seeing in the magazines. This would give us an opportunity to come back to the gravel pit in Reading, where our club had started doing impromptu triathlons, with a bit of swagger!
“We had a modest hit list. We both wanted the new Profile Aero 2 clip-ons and I needed a helmet. I’d set my sights on the Bell Ovation. I’d seen Mark Allen wearing it in Tri-Athlete at the 1988 Avignon Triathlon. We would review any other finds as and when.”
The first week went as expected and we spent the next few days travelling down to the Florida coast with our parents, stopping at every bike shop we passed quickly checking off our hit list.
After a couple of days of one on one swim-runs on the beach, the club were to reconvene in Orlando to visit Disneyland and some American strip mall/outlet shopping for regular American brands, that still seemed slightly exotic back in 1989.
It was while we were in a nondescript (not particularly sport specific) Nike outlet store that we found, hidden on a discount rack, the Holy Grail for aspiring teenage triathletes in the late eighties.
Something we knew you definitely couldn’t get in the UK. Something that I was sure would make us legends on the East Berkshire triathlon scene. The 1989 Mark Allen vest. The blue and grey one from the magazines. Made of mesh material, cropped at the front, long at the back (like a mullet) and with a pocket for the just invented sports nutrition.
There were two, both small. Mine would still need to be taken up at the shoulders by my mum. We grabbed them as though there might be someone else in this random Orlando outlet looking for an iconic triathlon vest.
There wasn’t.
Back at home our new kit helped to make East Berks feel a little bit more like San Diego, and we got a few knowing nods of appreciation from those in the know while rocking our new vests.
I’m holding the vest in my hands now and still love it. If it had a slightly more modern cut I’d still wear it.
Maybe I’ll try to recreate it. Watch this space.
Photo: At a 1989 Berkshire Tri Squad gravel pit race with my Florida purchases. Nike Mark Allen vest. Bell Ovation helmet. Profile Aero 2s.
Sick Edits
The blog is back! I love recording podcasts. It’s super-rewarding. And I learn new things every time. But it’s seriously time-consuming. My goal is to create an episode every Friday though. But blogging is quick. I can publish a post near-daily. And people seem to like it.
Before the internet. With YouTube. And live-streams. We got our triathlon viewing by buying VHS tapes out of the boot of a car at race venues.
This is 3 Ways To Do It by Dave Meads. He was a good triathlete too. And had a HUGE shoulder-based camera. Based out of Leicester AND Boulder.
I’m on this one. Finishing 4th at the National Long Course in Guernsey. I need to get the tape ripped. Then I’ll put it on YouTube.
The 1992 Triathlon International de Grenoble
Although this was the seventh edition of the event, it was the first time that a triathlon had gone up L’Alpe D’Huez. The distances were 2.2km, 71km, 18km and and the winners were Jenny Alcorn and Ben Bright.
The Triathlon International de Grenoble or TIGRE was organised by Carol Gally, the future race director of the France Iron Tour. I’ve already done podcasts about the 1993 and 1994 versions of that event.
Grenoble, on 28th June, was between Nice on 14th June and Ironbridge on 18th July. Ben Bright raced all three. And I’m going to post a full 1992 Nice report tomorrow. So I won’t talk much about that here.
In fact, Ben has just appeared on YouTube with a video breaking down that day at Nice in 1992. It’s a must-watch for anybody interested in triathlon history. And I’m going to try and get him on the podcast.
Ironbridge was incredible. I was there. 17 year old Bright cycled away from Britain’s best. There was a report in the September issue of 220 magazine. It’s the only one from 1992 that I don’t have.
I didn’t know at the time that he’d also done a similar job three weeks earlier in Grenoble. Beating clients like Yves Cordier, Jean-Luc Capogna, Karel Blondeel, Nick Croft, Hugues Sarrazin and Pierre Houseaux.
Images: TED MAG (FR) Aout / Septembre 1992
Kudos to TED Magazine here. The race report above is from their first issue. The publication was launched by Max Malaurent. He’d previously worked as a journalist and photographer for Triathlete Magazine,
Unfortunately TED only lasted for 13 issues. I’ve got them all. If you haven’t noticed, I’m pretty keen on old triathlon magazines.
The TIGRE race report is epic. With some backstory, quotes from athletes and nine different mid-race time checks and position break-downs.
There’s also a list of gear-ratios used to climb Alpe D’Huez by some of the fastest men. 39*23 for Bright. And a grinding 39*18 for Jean-Luc Capogna.
Poor form with the women’s race though. Only one sixteenth of a page. When there’s two and half pages dedicated to the men.
I knew this already. But the prize differences were pretty shocking too. First man, a Peugeot 106 car. First woman, €750. Second man, €2300. Second woman, €600. Etc. Take a look. France!
I’m not sure how many years the TIGRE continued on for. But in 2006, Cyril Neveu, the 2002 World Long Distance Champion, launched the Triathlon de L’Alpe d’Huez. I’d like to check it out one day. And while I’m there, recreate the original course from the early-90s.
Stephen Foster
When I started racing the French Grand Prix in 1996 I was star-struck. Yet it wasn’t because Simon Lessing was on the start line every week. I sort of, half knew him, kind of from Nice the year before.
I was more a fan of Stephen Foster. At the 1988 Chicago USTS he sent Mike Pigg home devastated and then two weeks later he finished 3rd in the Unofficial Worlds in Kelowna.
On the weekend between Kelowna and Chicago he got 4th in Vancouver.
Images: Tri-Athlete Oct/Nov 1988. Triathlete November 1988.
Two weeks before Chicago Foster also won Leon’s Triathlon in Hammond, Indiana. This race used to be a big-deal and billed itself as the World Age Group Championship. The race organiser was Leon Wollek.
These were the days when we could see the world’s best athletes going head to head three times in three weeks. With the WTS and Ironman-isation of the sport we don’t get that anymore. Shame.
Foster missed the first official ITU World Short Course Championships in Avignon in 1989 but came back to get 3rd in Orlando in 1990, 8th in the Gold Coast in 1991 and 4th in Muskoka in 1992.
Foster also won a draft-free World Cup in Embrun in 1993 (bottom) and was still truckin’ in the FGP in 1996, racing for Aix-en-Provence. Here’s some race results where we both feature.
He was an excellent cyclist for a smaller guy and I loved his bike. You can see it a bit on the Kelowna coverage at 08:40 and Embrun at 21:55. A hand-made steel Hillman made by Gordon Hill out of Melbourne.
Image: Triathlete November 1988
1996 Coupe de France
La Coupe de France is the national team time trial championships and is the traditional season-ending race. It's a big deal. I wrote about the very first one in 1992 here. Back then it was for teams of five. With at least three athletes required to cross the line together.
But when I raced La Coupe de France for the first time, with GT Vesoul 70 at Ancone in 1996, teams were comprised of seven athletes. With five athletes having to cross the finish line together to stop the clock.
I swam on the front most of the way. Then with larger teams, bike speeds were super-high on the half main road, half twisty lane course. On the run we did the lower-back-push-thing that Scott Molina spoke about here.
The results in 1996 were: 1st TGV St Quentin. Rob Barel’s club. 2nd Tricastin. Simon Lessing’s club. And 3rd TC Boulogne Billancourt. With Greg Bennett. I think we were 9th, 10th or 11th.
At the time it was definitely the hardest race I'd ever done. Probably still is. I’m number 636 in the photo above.
The First Ever Triathlon Team Time Trial
The Triathlon Team Time Trial is my all-time favourite triathlon format. You get a lot in France. But fewer elsewhere.
On Episode 8 of The Streak Podcast I spoke with Scott Molina about the Team Time Trial that was in the 1994 France Iron Tour. And on Episode 7 I went over the calamitous one included in the 1993 Trophee SNCF.
The world’s first took place in Mimizan in July 1992. It was a test-event for La Coupe de France that would be held at the same venue in October.
La Coupe de France is the traditional season ending one-day French Club Championship. Between 1988 and 1991 the event had been organised as a normal triathlon but with the times of first three finishers from each club being added together to get a total team time.
But the federation wanted something that would require real team-work*. And complement the season long Grand Prix competition.
Both the July and October events were an organisational and sporting success. Even if the teams were still figuring out the best tactics.
La Coupe in 1992 was won by Racing Club de France for the women and Poissy Triathlon for the men. And Simon Lessing raced for Salon.
In 1992 La Coupe was an Olympic Distance race. But had become a Sprint by the time I first did it in 1996. Blog post about that tomorrow.
Images:
TED (FR) Aout / Septembre 1992
TED (FR) Novembre / Decembre 1992
*This was before drafting. Which came to the ITU World Cup in 1994, the ITU World Championships in 1995 and the French Grand Prix in 1997.