TSP22: The 1993 Bordeaux Indoor Triathlon

This is Episode 22 of The Streak Podcast. Back with Luke on the line.
To do another 1980s or 1990s race watch-along. This is our 3rd one. Check out TSP14 and TSP20. To listen to the two previous races that were covered in incredible, maybe too much, detail.

Today we are looking at the 1993 Bordeaux Indoor Triathlon. An event that TED magazine called. A turning point for the sport. A day as historical as the first Hawaii Ironman or first Nice triathlon. Knowing what we know now I don’t quite agree with this. The format did go somewhere. But not far.

Facts

The event was held on Friday 19th February and Saturday 20th February 1993. The races started at 20:30 each day.

The venue was the velodrome de Bordeaux. A facility that was built in 1989. And would become more famous later in 1993 as the track used by Chris Boardman to break the hour record.

The total prize money was 200,000FF. Which is about €30,000.

Men’s Prize Money: 1st €7500 and a Renault Clio. Which you can see in the middle of the track. 2nd €4000. 3rd €1500. Down to €600 for 9th in the final. And €300 if you were eliminated in the semi-finals.

Now. Women’s Prize Money. Let’s put this down to “of it’s time”. 1st €2300. And. No mention of the Renault Clio. 2nd €1300. 3rd €1000. 9th €300.

The cost of a ticket was between €9-€15. Under 8s admitted free of charge. Crowds were 1500 on Friday and 4500 on Saturday.

3 TV channels covered the racing. Paris Premiere. A cable channel. Had 3 hours live on Saturday. And Eurosport and TF1 both had 1 hour of near-live coverage. Not sure what that means. Clearly there’s some footage of the semi-finals somewhere in an archive.

In-house announcing was done by Didier Laurent and Pierre Cessio.
Laurent was the announcer at the Palais Omnisports de Paris-Bercy. Because the Bercy team was involved in the logistics of the Bordeaux event.
And Cessio was a well known triathlon announcer. He’d worked at events such as Nice and the 1989 World Championships in Avignon.

The 9 lane swimming pool erected in the track centre was 50m 60cm long. And 1m deep. It took 10 people, 10 hours to construct. And was built from a section of the scaffold and tarpaulin pool used at Bercy for funboard and competitions. 48 hours were needed to heat the pool up to 26°C.

Athletes started to arrive a few days before the event. All the athletes stayed in the same hotel near the venue. They had an opportunity before the competition started to ride on the velodrome. For many it was their first time on a banked track. Mark Allen in a post-race interview in TED said he was scared of riding up the steep banking.

The distances of the races were 400m swim, 10km bike (40 laps) and 3km run.

Pre-1993 History

FFTRI first introduced the concept to the operators of the Palais Omnisports de Paris-Bercy in 1990. Bercy is a huge indoor multi-use arena right on La Seine in South East Paris.

Although Bercy has hosted plenty of track cycling they didn’t have a velodrome or running track always set-up and ready for use.

Bercy’s people suggested a Hawaiian themed decor. Palm trees etc. A swim in a type of lazy river or lagoon. That's not really clear. Then a mountain bike ride and off-road run. On trails built around the arena.

But it didn’t happen. Neither side could really agree on how it should be done. And so spending 4 million francs or €600,000 seemed unwise.

But the ITU were also interested and wouldn’t let the idea go away. So at the end of 1992 Bordeaux was decided upon as the town where the project would be relaunched in early-1993. The Bordeaux Velodrome has, not only, a permanent 250m velodrome but also a 200m running track inside it.

This halved the cost of hosting the racing. Compared to Bercy. Which doesn't have year-round cycling and running facilities.

The €300,000 organisational costs were quickly paid off by sponsors (Nike. Renault. EDF), TV rights and the sale of 6000 tickets.

There were 6 races before the TV Coverage started

4 on Friday and 2 on Saturday.

Race 1 on Friday was for up and coming French male athletes. Where the first 2 finishers would qualify for Saturday’s semi-finals. Benjamin Sanson led out the swim in 4:14. A time that would be the fastest of the weekend.

But. Then he had the slowest run of his heat. And only got 4th. The two qualifiers were Alain Vigne and Samuel Pierreclaud. I used to race Pierreclaud a lot in the mid-90s. And the Vigne qualification caused a bit of a kerfuffle. Because apparently he wasn’t an up and comer in either age or experience.

Race 2 was the French Women’s Championship. Where the first 3 finishers would qualify for Saturday’s final. As there were no semi-finals for women. Apparently big gaps opened due to the big differences in ability. And the 3 qualifiers were Lydie Reuze. Karin Gresset. And Sophie Tanidi.

Race 3 was the Spanish Men’s Championship. With one semi-final place available. There was a sprint finish. And Eduado Burgette qualified.

Race 4 was the French Men’s Championship. With 3 qualification slots up for grabs. The other Sanson brother. Jerome. Went 2 laps up on the bike. But. He also got 4th. The qualifiers were Thierry Henry. Gilles Reboul. And Vincent Jay. It was noted that guys like Jean-Luc Capogna. Vincent Bavay and Lecrique were just too far down after the swim. And had no way of using their cycling strength to re-take laps and get back into the race.

So. Now on to those two semi-finals on Saturday.

Semi-final One. Top 4 qualify and fastest 5th place finishers from the 2 semi-finals. Starters were. Simon Lessing. Garret McCarthy. Patrick Girard. Didier Volkaert. Maurizio De Benedetti. Mike Pigg. Plus the Friday qualifiers. Thierry Henry. Alain Vigne. And Eduardo Burgette.

McCarthy was first out of water. With Lessing 8 seconds back. McCarthy quickly takes a lap. Soon after all the athletes are together in one pack. But with some athletes a lap or two down.

There is a crash in this semi-final: Burgette contacts Henry and takes him down. Pigg and Vigne ride over them and also come down. Pigg and Henry remount. Burgette does not. It was noted that Pigg had spectacular board burns down his back. But he managed to finish 7th in the semi-final. So not qualifying for the final. And was very disgruntled after such a long trip.

Up front. Lessing wins. McCarthy second. Girard 3rd. Volkaert 4th gets the qualifying spot. Vigne in 5th would have to wait until after the 2nd semi-final to find out if he had qualified.

Semi-Final Two. Starters were. Mark Allen. Brad Beven. Thomas Hellriegel. Rob Barel. Philippe Methion. Danilo Palmucci. And the Friday qualifiers. Vincent Jay. Samuel Pierreclaud. And Gilles Reboul.

Beven had the fastest swim. Gaining a 16 second lead. And like McCarthy he takes a lap. There’s another crash. 5km in. Palmucci and Methion fall.

Beven, of course, was away. And Allen was in control of 2nd. Hellreigel had a huge run to get 3rd. One word - dangerous. Barel and Jay ran together. With Barel eventually getting 4th. But unlucky for Alain Vigne. Vincent Jay was the fastest 5th.

Now Onto The Eurosport Live Coverage

We’re not going to take you through the race. Because you can go and watch it yourself. The video is embedded in the show-notes. We are just going to present our favourite bits. Like we did with Nice 1992 and St Croix 1993.

Luke’s Best Bit’s

Karin Gresset wearing Swans goggles.

Ross’s Best Bits.

Commentators: Eric Bacos (the French Ian Sweet) and Eric Plantin. 12th in Kona in 1989. The Iron War year. Yves Cordier was 9th that day.

Olympics: Eric Bacos says triathlon is hoping to get into the Olympics. Maybe not in Atlanta but possibly in Sydney. Along with golf (which he says doesn’t have a chance) and water skiing. Golf returned to the games in 2016. After 1900 and 1904. Water skiing was a demonstration sport in 1972.
Post-race Rob Barel suggested that the indoor format would be great in the Olympics. And would solve the drafting problem. He also wanted to see some sort of head to heard or match-play racing. Love it.

Towels: All athletes had to take a mandatory 15 seconds to towel off and get as dry as possible. Then put cycling clothing on.

Cranks: The Commentators mention that the athletes are using road cranks. So probably 175mm. Which was the standard back then. Yet TED magazine said they had to be changed to something shorter. But now I don’t think that happened. Because Plantin also says that the length of the cranks was probably the cause of some earlier crashes. Particularly Philippe Methion’s. When his right crank hit the boards. Maybe in an attempt to avoid Palmucci.

Traffic: This is about Sophie Delemer. Because on the first watch we both thought she should have been credited with being a lap up on Mieke Suys.

At about 2km point Delemer takes the lead! Rides with Reuze on her wheel. They work together a bit. But then there’s a point when Delemer is in traffic. Behind clearly very nervous and slow riders. Not sure why she hesitated to go by because she was confident riding up the banking.

But this is when Suys and Schaeffer caught up. So they never lost a whole lap. Although they were probably three quarters of a lap down at one point. Post-race Delemer also thought she was a lap up.

Mantak Attack: Was the headline in Triathlete. Suys and Delemer off the bike together. Schaeffer and Mantak in 3rd and 4th. Half a lap down maybe. Suys starts off looking smooth. Delemer isn’t really. And then Mantak takes the lead after about 1km. To win quite easily. Contrast to what the men were thinking. That only a swim-biker could win.

Iconic Kits: And how big Reebok was in triathlon at the time. I was a big fan of Reebok shoes in the 1980s. The Reebok London. As worn by Steve Jones. I didn’t have those. But I did have some Reebok PBs. Which were what we called a racer / trainer. In the video Nielsen, Beven and Matak are all in Reebok kit.

Then there’s Lessing's Nike spiderman tri-suit. This is cool because tri-suits were not quite back yet. Vest and trunks was the most popular look at the time. Although tri-suits were definitely popular in the mid-80s.

Mark Allen is also in Nike. This time a yellow, blue and white singlet. But both Lessing and Allen would wear the black, yellow, red, white versions in Nice in June. Honorable mention. Rob Barel wearing a cap over his swimming cap pre-race. As the athletes are being introduced.

Laps: Before the final the known tactic was that you had to take a lap to be in with a chance of winning. Those that couldn’t do that had to focus on not losing a lap. Brad Beven had decided after the semi-final that he was going to try and take a lap. Or even two. His swim was impressive. No drafting in lanes. And he got a 10-12 second lead.

He’s on a Zipp beam bike. And pushing 56*15 according to a Q and A in Triathlete. At 40km/hr is 18 seconds per lap. And he was going faster than that. So he quickly takes a lap on Barel. Then Lessing. Who looks kinda shocked. He’s riding on a very nice red Cannondale with a disc wheel.

Mark Allen actually said post-race that you couldn’t see across the track because the pool was in the way. So maybe he and Lessing couldn’t gauge their speed off what Beven was doing.

Barel, Lessing and Bevn even work together for a few laps. There’s maybe some hesitation though at some point. That allows Allen and Vincent Jay to catch up. Jay said that he was just happy to make the final. But was then proud to contribute by driving hard on the bike and even trying to take a lap at one point. He ended his career in the next couple of years to be a dentist.

Soon after EVERYBODY is together. Except McCarthy. For obvious reasons. Beven is a lap up. Jay, Barel, Lessing and Allen are on the same lap. And all the others are at least two laps down on Beven.

Lessing even has an attempt at a lap. And Mark Allen is doing his last race on his Huffy. Before moving to Look.

Patrick Girard also tries hard to take a lap several times. Pumping up the crowd with hand gestures. To show that he was the cycle specialist. He maybe even had track experience. He famously beat Lessing at the 1991 Coupe de France. It was very rare at this time for Lessing to lose a race in France.

And he’d go on to be the first French finisher at the 1994 France Iron Tour. Link in the show-notes to TSP8 which is about that race.

Good Prep / Bad Prep: Danilo Palmucci did some motor pacing behind a scooter. Delemer Trained by Daniel Morelon. Beven had won a short event the week before barefoot. Il est parti peids nu. Screaming. Take a running lap. Then we get a slo-mo foot shot.

A couple of French athletes threw FFTRI under the bus. Girard - how can they ask us to be on form for something completely out of season. Methion - only told about it 3 weeks ago.

How good was Mark Allen? At all distances. At 35 years old. Beven was 23. Lessing was 21. Later in 1993 he’d win his 5th Hawaii Ironman and 10th Nice.

He lost 30 seconds in the swim. So he swam about 5:00. But he looked good and powerful on the bike. Not to lose a lap when Barel, Beven and Lessing were working together. And then got on the back of that group with the help of Vincent Jay.

And that run. Stride for stride with Beven and Lessing for 2.8km. Eventually losing the sprint for 3rd place. But easily ahead of Barel. Bad camera work nearly missed the sprint. Commentators were losing it.

Garret McCarthy Side-Bar

He competed for the USA in the 1989 World Championships in Avignon. Finishing 25th. And winning gold in the team competition. Although the 3 scorers on the US team were Mark Allen in 1st. Mike Pigg in 7th. And Brooks Clark in 11th. The 5th US athlete was Ken Glah in 44th. He’s also very prominent on the Avignon live coverage. Link in the show-notes to that race. IMO. The best triathlon video on YouTube.

By the 1990 worlds in Orlando McCarthy was competing for Ireland. He had a mechanical and DNFed by the way. But would bounce back and get 11th in 1992 in Huntsville and 27th on the Gold Coast in 1991.

I’ve read different reports about the extent of McCarthy’s Irishness. He was born in New York while his Irish father attended college there. McCarthy later studied at the University of Southern California where he was a swimmer.

And although he had dual-citizenship an article in Triathlete (UK) in August 1990 about the Coca Cola Portaferry International Triathlon said that, “He certainly wouldn’t be the first sportsman to compete in a green vest who had, shall we say, tenuous links with the Emerald Isle.”

However an article in the Colorado Daily from 2009 said that he was raised in Ireland. Anyway, who knows. But he was an epic off-the-front athlete.

This leads me on to McCarthy’s post-triathlon career activities.

He coached youth and masters swimming in Boulder but also owned an Irish Pub called the Old Louisville Inn in Louisville. Which is like a suburb of Denver very close to Boulder. Here’s a quote from that Colorado Daily article about upcoming St Patrick's Day celebrations:

Further east, the Old Louisville Inn is throwing its 15th annual St. Patrick’s Day Festival on Tuesday.

Owner Garrett McCarthy, who was raised in Ireland and competed on the country’s triathlon team for 11 years, bought the historic bar in 1994 and in 1995 hosted its first St. Patrick’s Day Festival.

“I used to do an hour and a half of singing and stories and giveaways,” McCarthy says.

The event grew in size over the years to include musical acts like Hazel Miller, a large performance tent and prize giveaways, including a John Deere cruiser bike.

This year’s festival will feature musician Meghan Frenzel, who has performed at all of the Old Louisville Inn’s St. Patrick’s Day Festivals.

“She does everything from the classic Irish stuff to the sing-a-long,” McCarthy says.

Pat O’Kelly will play the bagpipes throughout the day, and the restaurant will be selling its signature St. Patrick’s Day items: mahi mahi fish and chips and corned buffalo in place of the traditional corned beef.

He anticipates they’ll go through around 700 pounds of buffalo meat and 1,000 pounds of potatoes. That will be business as usual for the Old Louisville Inn, McCarthy says, as the restaurant has become a holiday destination every March.

“It’s funny, because people think (Louisville) is an Irish town after doing this for 15 years,” he says. “We’re going to get slammed. It’s like a pilgrimage for that day.”

He now lives in Hawaii as his LinkedIn profile says: Semi-Retired and living the life in paradise! But. We also have another Garret McCarthy story from an actual sighting. In France. I was on the start line of a French Grand Prix event. In 1992 or 1993. Way out of my league. And there’s Garrett. Next to me. Wearing only wetsuit legs. Tied up with a string belt.

How Could It Have Been Improved? Did It Have A Future?
Were other indoor races ever held?

John Lillie: If this side of the sport develops then track bikes would be more appropriate and safer. You get more fine control of bike speed in bunches. Use the 6 day scoreboard to show laps.

TED: Was hoping for some cycling innovations. But got none. Nobody dared use a track bike. The Sanson brothers took off their derailleurs!

Ross: The idea was great. I would have liked to see it taken further. 5 cities through the winter. Definitely track bikes. Game-ify it by playing with formats. Time trials. Points races where taking a lap would be the primary tactic. Eliminators. A pursuit format. Random team events.

Essentially I think the concept was not scalable. Hard to get age groupers involved. Which most elite races rely on to offset costs. 25m pool.

Spencer Smith not there. Wasn’t into doing things that he couldn’t win. That was his brand. Lessing raced far more. Disastrous tour in France in 1992.

Today we have the Lievin indoor triathlon. The event was a round of the ITU World Cup Series in 2024. Link in the show-notes to the YT video.

But 2 more indoor races definitely took place in the 1990s. That we know about. Paris-Bercy 1994. F1 1995 in Perth. Link in show-notes to those race reports. I also found a story by Ian Sweet from 220 Dec 1993-Jan 1994. Announcing something called the Indoorman in Dortmund. Did this happen? In the 2010s US Moving Pool parking lots.

Thanks Luke. What’s the next one? Another Nice? Maybe 1985. Or a Lessing one. Avignon? An 80s Hawaii? Mid-90s Roth?