By Timothy Carlson

The previous 17 years of Ironman competition in Hawaii sparkle with great moments. These are some of the greatest:

Entering The Great Unknown
No. 1. February 18, 1978

Navy Commander John Collins was 43 when he threw out the challenge to do the 2.4 mile swim, 112-mile bike, and 26.2 mile run on the island of Oahu. Collins challenged the finishers in January 1977 at the awards ceremony for the Oahu Perimeter Relay Run at Primo Gardens in Pearl City, the home of Primo Beer. "Whoever finishes first," said Collins, "we'll call the Iron Man." He recalled it got a big laugh. But a year later, eighteen people showed up, 15 started, and 12 finished.

It was conceived as an endurance test, but two previously anonymous men made it a race from the beginning. Gordon Haller was a 27-year-old Honolulu taxi driver at the time. But more pertinent, he was a former military pentathlete and former Naval officer who had run the 1976 Marine Corps Marathon in 2:27. Haller had flown to Hawaii to do the Perimeter relay in 1976 after he got out of the Navy, but when the event was delayed he decided to stay and focus on running and conditioning. Mike Plant, author of "Iron Will", wrote that while running 120 miles a week, Haller did a little gardening, sold a weight-loss program door-to-door, gave surf reports, joined the Naval Reserve, and drove a taxi. But his mission in life was really conditioning and running and to aid that he got a job from Hank Grundman, who ran the Nautilus Fitness center on King Street. Grundman, as it turned out, was the first sponsor of the Hawaiian Ironman, contributing T-shirts and a trophy for the 1979 event--in exchange for free gym privileges.

John Dunbar was a Navy SEAL who survived the terrifying 18-week basic training program in the cold California surf--it has a 90 percent dropout rate--and welcomed a similar challenge of the Ironman. He also ran marathons and rode his bike everywhere. But his longest training rides were only about 20 miles and he thought his overall conditioning could carry him through. It was a big mistake.

Dunbar got out of the water in an hour after the ocean swim, three minutes behind the leader, quickly biked into the lead and pulled away. Haller, who trailed by over half an hour, steadily made up time on the bike as Dunbar, untrained in long distance biking, was in mounting agony as the miles in the saddle piled up. At the end of the bike ride at Aloha Tower, Haller trailed by 13 minutes and was much fresher. Haller made up 10 minutes quickly, but coming downhill from Diamond Head, he cramped and had to stop for a massage at Mile 17, and trailed by eight. But within three miles, Haller erased Dunbar's lead again. This time Dunbar was through. Haller passed him at Mile 21, unnoticed, as Dunbar was in his own private hell of hallucination, bouncing off parked cars, repeating his SEAL mantra "If you quit, you lose." Haller won in 11:46.58 and Dunbar, his slide aggravated by ingesting a couple of beers in the last few miles, trailed by 35 minutes.

Tom Warren's Great Victory Over Dunbar
No. 2: February 14, 1979

Attracted by reports of the first event, the Ironman drew three people who would change the nature of the event and of the sport.

Ken Shirk, a Lake Tahoe-area hippie and philosopher who had finished the Western States 100, showed up with a Viking-style cow-horn hat and was ready to race. He signaled the Ironman's attraction to eccentric individualists of enormous aerobic optimism and varying philosophies everywhere. Dunbar and Haller were ready to race again, as was Tom Warren, 35, a Pacific Beach, California tavern owner and accountant who had competed in the first triathlons put on by the San Diego Road Runners on Fiesta Island in the San Diego area in 1974.

But Warren, a former USC Trojan swimmer, was better known for his addiction to self-imposed amazing endurance feats. He had already swum a 15-mile ocean race, run 75 miles through the mountains, and completed a 1,600 mile bicycle trip in two weeks. He was fond of winning bar bets by doing 400 sit-ups in a sauna after a rigorous series of workouts which might include running to Tijuana and back with some swims thrown in for good measure. Warren had a crazy off-kilter running stride caused by a broken leg when he was two years old--but he was quietly fierce.

Then came Sports Illustrated writer Barry McDermott, who had been clued in to the event by a source.

On the scheduled start, the waters of the Pacific were white with foam from a storm. The 28 who signed up voted to postpone the start. Dunbar, who wore a Superman cape, protested vigorously. Warren, comfortable in the ocean, also wanted to start. But Haller, a poor swimmer, looked green and was happy when Collins put it off. The next day 15 started and Haller barely survived with a 1:51 swim. Warren got the jump with a 1:06 and quickly passed swim leader Ian Emberson to take the lead. Dunbar trailed at 1:09 and faded from the start of the bike.

By the return from the North Shore along the King Kamehameha Highway, first Iron woman Lyn Lemaire made up ground, actually passed Dunbar for second-place, and got within 20 minutes of Warren. Running on an unmarked course and dodging Honolulu pedestrians and traffic, Warren duck-footed his way to a 3:23 marathon and broke Haller's record by half an hour, finishing in 11:15.56. Dunbar struggled in 45 minutes later, Haller was fourth, and Lemaire, after a cramp-filled 5 hour, 10 minute marathon, was fifth. Collin's 14-year-old son managed to finish the thing in about 24 hours, and will forever be the youngest Ironman finisher--a minimum age requirement was subsequently set at 18.

But the big impact came when McDermott's article came out May 14, 1979, and ABC Wide World of Sports read it and decided to be there when the next one started in February 1980.

Dave Scott Arrives
No. 3: February 1980

Before Ironman, Scott was a former UC-Davis waterpolo player and successful national-level Masters swimmer. He was coaching the Masters swim program in Davis, a small city on the hot, flat plains of California's northern San Joaquin Valley, when he first heard about the Ironman.

He was in Honolulu to compete in the Waikiki Rough Water Swim in 1978 when Collins gave him a flyer and invited him to try the 1979 event. Scott barely noticed, but when Collins told him that 12 had finished the event, he was impressed. "Here were 12 people in better shape than me!" When Scott saw Warren's times in the Barry McDermott's Sports Illustrated article, he decided to go for it. In September, he ran a 2:45 first marathon in Sacramento and in October put himself through his own Ironman trial in Davis with a 5,000 meter swim, 105 mile bike ride, and a 20-mile run.

Scott arrived ready and took the Ironman to a new level. He got out of the water in 51 minutes and had a 30-minute lead by the end of the bike, which he did in an astonishing 5:03. Only Olympic cyclist John Howard gained time on the bike, but Howard was an hour behind coming out of the water and had no hope that day, finishing third. Scott held on with a 3:30 marathon and a 9:24.33 finish to beat Chuck Neumann by an hour. Tom Warren, now relegated to second-tier status, was fourth in 10:49. Scott told author Mike Plant: "I said to myself: God, I've really found a sport, an event, that's built for me."

John Howard Cycles to Stardom
No. 4: February 1981

After 108 entrants showed up for the 1980 Ironman, race director Valerie Silk Grundman knew that the Ironman had outgrown crowded Oahu and moved the event to the Big Island, where the less crowded and primal lava-strewn Queen Kaahumanu Highway would be the hot anvil for Ironman heroics from then on.

Scott was injured and Howard took advantage, working scientifically on his weaknesses and maximizing his cycling. This was also the last year that race officials, worried that dehydrated athletes might die on them, had competitors stop twice during the race to weigh them. If they had lost more than 10 percent of body weight, they would not be allowed to continue. Howard and lifeguards Mark Montgomery and Kim Bushong decided to avoid any trouble by sweating off 12 pounds in a sauna just before weigh-in and actually weighed more than official body weight at the first checkpoint.

Montgomery and Bushong led the bike until Howard, buoyed by an improved 1:11 swim, ate them up and disappeared into the lead. A new and improved Tom Warren had busted a 59:40 swim, biked a second-fastest 5:37 to Howard's 5:03.29, and run an impressive 3:27.49 marathon in the Kona heat for a 10:04, an hour and seven minutes faster than his winning time in 1979. But Howard had learned to run, cranking out a 3:23.48 run for a 9:38.29 finishing time, generally regarded as more impressive than Scott's 9:34 winning time on Oahu because the weather was hotter and the course tougher.

Warren held off newcomer Scott Tinley, who ran a 3:19.21 marathon and finished just eight minutes behind Warren. Montgomery, soon to make his mark as a top pro triathlete, suffered hyponatremia and massive, painful cramps left him standing against the big tree at the foot of the King Kamehameha Hotel for four hours, beginning his streak of eight straight Did-Not-Finishes at the Ironman. Scott Molina, who also suffers from hyponatremia, was taken off the course by an ambulance from the 17-mile mark of the run. In all, 326 started and the Ironman was inevitably picking up steam to become a prestigious, international event.

Julie Moss Crawls Into History
No. 5. February 1982

San Diego triathlete Julie Moss had gone from sport to sport as a high school athlete, trying basketball, volleyball, softball, and tennis, with no distinction in any of them. In college, she jogged and surfed, and tried one half-marathon, motivated by a mad crush on a boy who was doing it too.

Mainly she was attracted to adventure, rushing off to Mammoth for a week of skiing, or a week of surfing in Mexico. In a relationship with San Diego lifeguard Reed Gregerson, who talked about Ironman so much, he motivated her to train for the February 1982 race. About a month before the race, they broke up, and Moss was on her own, forced to figure out whether she was doing this for Gregerson or herself. On race day, she bolted out of the water in 1:11, with an eight-minute lead on Lyn Brooks and a 21-minute lead on pre-race favorite Kathleen McCartney. McCartney carved just two minutes off Moss's lead with a 5:51 bike ride.

As the ABC camera van followed the freckled, red-haired Moss, it was clear that this was the first time in her life that Julie Moss had ever had a chance to win something as big as this and she was a little excited and overwhelmed. Excited enough to forget to eat and drink enough on the bike. Excited enough to run on empty to Mile 25 of the marathon, almost within sight of the finish on Alii Drive.

Then, caught by ABC cameras with eerie, haunting music overlaid on the broadcast, she lost control of her legs and wobbled, then fell, then crawled to the line. Glassy-eyed, she knew enough not to allow others to help her, which might get her disqualified, as Dorando Pietri had been for receiving outside assistance near the finish line in the 1908 Olympic Marathon. Almost unnoticed, McCartney hopped past the flood-lit confusion as Moss was crawling on hands and knees 25 yards from the finish line. McCartney won by 29 seconds. But the dramatic footage of Moss transfixed everyone who saw it, won Emmies, and inspired a legion of triathletes to take up the sport. "I just saw somebody who wanted something so bad she was willing to do anything, crawl of whatever it took, and it just sent chills up my spine," said current Ironman contender Chuckie Veylupek, whose huge mohawk haircut is featured in Nike and Gatorade MTV-style ads.

It also inspired a young San Diego lifeguard and potential med student named Mark Allen to take up the sport and skip a medical career.

Meanwhile, budding triathlon legend Scott Tinley managed to pound Dave Scott by 17 minutes, crushing The Man by running a 3:03.45 marathon to Scott's 3:21.02 in a men's race that will forever be relegated to near asterisk status because of the impact of Moss's courage on TV.

Just 33 Seconds
No. 6. October 1983

After Moss's drama in February, the Ironman administration shifted the race to October and thus 1982 had two events. Dave Scott re-established dominance with a 20-minute win over Tinley with a 9:08, then, in 1983, they had a fabled rematch.

Scott took a seven minute advantage with a 50:52 swim and gave it back when Tinley powered to 5:03.58 bike. They took off even from the Kona Surf transition area and Scott immediately powered to a 4-minute lead that seemed to stamp his mark on the race.

But, out of sight of the crowds and Tinley, Scott started to feel like hell and held on for dear life. Scott really began to worry when his handler Pat Feeney got reports of Tinley erratically reeling off 6:15 miles, then a 7:00, then a 6:30, while Scott struggled at a steadily slowing pace. At the airport turnaround, Scott tried to make a brave face and held a 3 minute lead on Tinley as they passed by one another.

At the turnaround, the lead was still 3 minutes and Tinley temporarily lost his belief he could win. With five miles to go, Scott was really nervous with a 2:25 lead. With three miles, it was down to 1:33 and Feeney told Scott he better get going, reporting that Tinley looked good. Tinley, who had fought discouragement all the way, finally started a sprint with two miles to go, but it was too late. He crossed the line 33 seconds back of Scott's 9:05.57 and vowed never to surrender psychologically again.

Iron Payday and Drafting Heartbreak
No. 7. October 1986

By 1986, Ironman officials had given into the inevitable, just as Boston Marathon officials had done, and finally offered prize money. With the stakes raised came more intrigue. The Ironman was once again to be a duel between Dave Scott, Scott Tinley and the ever-threatening Mark Allen. But the women held the most drama. The superb Puntous twins had finished one-two in 1983 and 1984 and did not show when Joanne Ernst of Palo Alto outdueled Elizabeth Bulman in 1985. But by 1986, their training had improved exponentially from the 10:25 pace of the past few years and the women were ready to blow the 10-hour barrier to smithereens.

One thing that haunted race organizers was the possibility of drafting. Chicago Marathon race director/promoter Bob Bright was hired to make sure that athletes would race the Bud Light Hawaiian Ironman and not the competing Nice triathlon. So he gave Tinley and Scott appearance money from the new $100,000 prize purse fund to make sure that they would race Hawaii only and paid expenses to past winners like the Puntous twins.

The key complaint against the French Canadian endurance stars--called the Stereo Sisters and the Twinkies by some irked competitors--was that not only did they train and race together, but they raced together too closely on the bike. Ernst, in particular complained loudly to Bright to watch for illegal drafting by the Puntous sisters. On race day, the Sylviane and Patricia got out of the water in :56 with Liz Bulman, while second-year vet Paula Newby-Fraser of Zimbabwe, third a year before, got out in :57 with Joanne Ernst.

Ernst made a brave breakaway on the bike and broke to a seven-minute lead with a 5:26.09 bike, but spent by the effort, she faded on the run. Unbeknownst to anyone but race officials, a drafting marshal had caught Patricia Puntous drafting and reported her to headquarters while the race continued. For once, Patricia was leading her sister and while her agent and race officials squabbled about whether or not to pull her off the course--their agent argued the draft official might have mistaken her for her sister and there would be no recourse if she were not allowed to finish. So Patricia Puntous crossed the line caught by ABC cameras a thrilled winner, finally joining her sister Sylviane, the 1983 and 1984 winner, in victory.

But moments later, race officials huddled and reset the women's finishing tape. Newby-Fraser, who had passed a struggling Sylviane Puntous late in the race, crossed the line in 9:49.14, four minutes up on Sylviane, and 11 minutes up on Ernst. ABC cameras caught the Puntous sisters crying in each other's arms and it made yet another dramatic broadcast, but left Ironman officials embarrassed with the confusion.

Brad Hinshaw set an all time Ironman Hawaii swim record that year with a 47:35 time, but was soon joined on the bike by his brother Chris, Dutch star Rob Barel, and co-favorites Dave Scott and Mark Allen.

This day, no one, not even Allen, could hang with Scott, who set a new bike record with a 4:48.32, breaking that mark by five and a half minutes. On the marathon, Scott went out at a conservative 6:30 pace and then put the screws on midway in the run, ripping off some 6:00 miles and stretching his lead to six minutes. Scott ran the final mile under 6:00, putting an exclamation point on his fifth victory with a 2:49.11 marathon and a 8:28.37 mark, 22 minutes under Tinley's course record and seven-and-a-half up on Allen, who ran a 2:55 marathon, with Tinley laboring home in third in 9:00.37.

Mark Allen's Really Bad Day--Dave Scott's 6th win
No. 8 October 1987

Allen had ridden the bike to a huge 12-minute lead at Ironman 1984 and then, with severe salt depletion on one of the hottest Ironman days ever, was reduced to walking most of the run and staggered in 5th, 40 minutes behind Dave Scott. In 1985, neither Allen nor Scott showed at Ironman because of their failure to pay prize money and Scott Tinley won his second. But by 1987, Allen's consecutive streak of wins at Nice was well along and he stole much of the pre-race thunder from five-time champ Scott.

In 1987, Allen craftily tickled Scott's toes on the swim, 50:57 to 51:00, transparently loving it that he irritated the hell out of his rival, then stuck with him like a shadow on the bike, in 4:53.48 to Scott's 4:53:47, willing to let the run decide it.

But despite appearances, Allen's race was not going with metronomic efficiency. By the airport on the bike, Allen's nose started to bleed and he had to ask for some gauze to staunch the flow. On the way back to town, Allen drank some Exceed and some water and immediately had to throw up, with eight miles left on the bike.

Still, Allen recovered and broke out to a one-minute lead on the run which he worked up to four minutes by the turnaround near the airport. With 10 miles to go, Allen felt fine, but then he found he could not absorb water nor Exceed and he just ran out of gas. Allen then was reduced to a shuffle that workout partner Paul Huddle later tabbed "The Dance of the Thousand Headless Monkeys."

By the finish, Allen trailed by 11 minutes and found he was bleeding internally and had to be taken to an emergency room with cold water pumped into his stomach to stop the bleeding. He ended up with four or five IVs and a severe case of self-doubt that he could ever win this race.

Scott, as he celebrated his sixth win, complained about Allen swimming on his feet.

Breakthroughs
No. 9. October 1988

Paula Newby-Fraser crushed Erin Baker by 11 minutes with a 9:01.01 clocking and caused a great deal of apprehension among insecure male chauvinists by placing 11th overall in the field of 1,275. The next year, ABC commentator Sam Posey called her "The premier woman endurance athlete in history."

With Dave Scott out and Mark Allen sidelined by bike trouble, Scott "the Terminator" Molina finally found a solution to his severe salt-depletion problems at the Ironman. After training 600 miles a week on the bike in 120-degree heat in Palm Springs and working up some salt-replacement formulas and running a perfectly designed race, he beat short-course master Mike Pigg by 2:11 with an 8:31 clocking on one of the hottest days in Ironman history.

Molina's win was remarkable; at one point he concluded that he'd race in the Ironman again because he was so physically unsuited for the heat and humidity of Kona.

Clash of the Titans . . . Allen Breaks Through
No. 10. October 1989

With the best weather of any Ironman in memory, Mark Allen and Dave Scott predicted a breakthrough performance and they did not disappoint. As in 1987, Scott got out of the water one second faster than Allen in 51:16, while Allen returned the favor by a second with a record-shattering 4:37.52 mark on the bike.

Tension built to unbearable levels as they continued to run closer than the Puntous twins and with unmatched speed and ferocity, step for step at a pace 10 minutes faster than any previous Ironman marathon, headed toward a 19-minute smashing of the course record. As they stepped along, a crowd of kids on bicycles following behind grew to about 200. Quiet, they looked like rural peasants come to witness a religious miracle. Which one would one crack?

Dave Scott recalls that Allen, in addition to the tickle-his-toes gamesmanship on the swim, had learned a new trick -- speeding up imperceptibly at every aid station to be the first one to get the water. Scott said that he used up a cupful of energy at every station speeding back up to take his place at Allen's side.

Going into the last long incline two miles from the finish line, Scott recalls thinking he would make his push at the top of the hill. Allen, knowing that Scott was notorious for his speed on downhill running, said to himself: Now or never! Allen took off at the base of the hill. As he saw Allen's feet recede at a dreamlike rate, Scott said he recalled thinking: Wait a Minute! Wait for me! I'm not ready... Wait!

Allen, who had envisioned deriving energy from an ancient Indian shaman during the run, pulled out to win by 58 seconds in 8:09.15. Julie Moss, whom Allen was about to marry, had dropped out of her race while in a disappointing eighth-place to make sure that she could be there for the epic finish.

Ignored by television race coverage, Greg Welch of Australia ran a 2:56 marathon to pass a dozen top triathletes on the run, beating Pauli Kiuru by 26 seconds and Ken Glah by 16 while passing them in the last two miles.

Meanwhile, Paula Newby-Fraser inched closer to another barrier with a 9:00.36 race, defeating Sylviane Puntous by 21 minutes.

Chilean Newcomer Scares Allen
No. 10. October 1992

Cristian Bustos of Chile, a 2:19 pure marathoner, had the race of his life and ran toe to toe with Mark Allen to Mile 15 of the run when The Grip put his foot down on the gas and ran to a seven-minute victory. On this day, everything went perfectly for Newby-Fraser, who obliterated the 9 hour mark with a 8:55.28 clocking and 26th overall for her sixth win, with a 26-minute margin over JulieAnne White of Canada.

Allen Withstands a Zack Attack and Runs Down Kiuru
No. 11: October 1993

Jurgen Zack of Germany caught up to the leaders before Hawi and pushed harder than anyone before on the bike, exacting a heavy toll as only Allen, Wolfgang Dittrich, Cristian Bustos and Finland's Pauli Kiuru could hang on.

Zack's 4:27.42 time broke the bike mark by five minutes and nearly broke Allen's body and will. With Zack spent, Ironman Australia winner Pauli Kiuru took off on the run like a streak and worked up a shocking 4-minute, two-thirds of a mile lead on the run over Allen by the time they hit the lava fields.

As Dittrich and Zack faded and Bustos dropped out with a bad back, Allen got his legs back and chipped away at Kiuru, finally passing him with a gentle pat on the elbow midway thorough the Natural Energy Lab road detour, with 9 miles to go.

Kiuru, who had finished third in 1990, fourth in 1991, third in 1992, held on for second this day. He said later that he mixed his energy drinks at the wrong concentration and suffered cramps when Allen passed him.

Dave Scott, commenting later on the race, questioned Kiuru's heart: "Pauli said he mixed his carbohydrate replacement drink too thick and had a cramp, but I think he got his head upside down. He had the race won and he let Mark by and shook his hand. They might as well have played cards! He lost one minute a mile after Mark went by and he wasn't dying. He wasn't going into a state of oblivion. He was still able to focus, and he let it go."

Obviously, Scott still had his racer's venom five years into retirement. Would he return? On this day, Paula Newby Fraser came into the race short three months of running training due to an ankle injury but managed to hold off arch-rival Erin Baker, herself just seven months after the birth of son Miguel, by 9 minutes 41 seconds with a time of 8 hours 58 minutes 23 seconds.

JulieAnne White, runner-up the year before, finished in terrible pain due to her stomach shutting down on the run and afterwards surgeons had to remove 12 inches from her colon.

Notably, short course specialist Karen Smyers moved up in distance and finished fourth behind Coloradan Sue Latshaw and some 23 minutes behind Newby-Fraser. Despite her seeming invincibility, Newby Fraser said she tapped deeply into pain in the last eight miles and "left pieces of her heart and soul on the Queen K."

Some said she just wanted to drive a stake into the heart of her toughest Ironman rival--1987 and 1990 champion Erin Baker--so she would never have to face the relentless Baker again. Baker, discouraged by getting kicked in the face on the swim and suffering both bruises and a lost four minutes she never made up, obliged because she wanted to devote herself to raising her child. But not before she won a $40,000 payday at the 1994 Powerman Duathlon in Zofingen.

Welch, the Down Under Dingo, finally wins the big one
No: 12. October 1994

After his draining fifth straight Gatorade Ironman Triathlon victory, Mark Allen took the year off to gather his strength back and tend to parenting duties of his son Mats. So he returned as an NBC commentator and tabbed Dave Scott' return a 40-to-1 longshot. Scott, plagued with injuries since 1990, had retired from the sport and set up a successful coaching/consulting business but there remained an ache; he had at least one great race still in him.

After his loss to Allen in 1989, Scott planned to run a much faster Ironman but injuries never let that happen. Slowly, his body came back, and this season, when he was 40, Scott plotted how he could compete at Ironman not just setting a new Masters record, but faster than ever, racing even with all the great athletes who had advanced in the sport since he left it.

He started slow with a fumbling race in Panama City, then some top ten finishes at Orange County and Nice. Then Scott he went alone into the mountains of Colorado as he once did on the hot plains of Davis and he pushed himself in the old ways. The body responded.

In Allen's absence, Greg Welch had prospered, recovering from a last-minute bike accident that kept him out of Ironman 1993 and provided a hunger and focus that might have been lacking earlier. Although Kiuru was the logical inheritor of Allen's crown, Welch stomped the Finn in the heat at Ironman Japan in late June and was primed to finish off his quest in Hawaii.

Meanwhile, Jurgen Zack triumphed at Ironman Europe in Roth, Germany in 8:01.593 and ran an impressive 2:48 marathon. Before the race, Zack and Ken Glah doubted Scott, after five years off, could keep up with the new era's punishing pace on the bike. Coming out of the water, Scott swam 51:48, on the same minute he did at his first Ironman in 1980. He soon caught a curiously conservative bike pack, lulled by Jurgen Zack's chest cold and his strategy to save something this year for the run. Oddly, Kiuru had a terrible day and faded fast to a stunning 10:04 finish and was out of it.

Glah and Zack paced the bike, while the newly calculating Greg Welch hung back with Dave Scott while Hungarian Peter Kropko, owner of a proud 2:39 marathon at the end of Ironman Germany, wasted his energy trying alone to bridge the gap on the bike to Zack and Glah.

Scott, in superb shape, was comfortable with the new bike pace and hung tight with Welch as he carved past Zack and Glah on the run after they ran up Palani Hill to the lava fields. Meanwhile, strong duathlete Jeff Devlin of Pennsylvania, who finished third in the 1991 Gatorade Ironman in Hawaii (after a disastrous 58 minute swim where he was blown into a marker boat by the prop wash of a media helicopter), passed 159 bikes to get from 162nd to third midway through the run.

Welch, who had always been forced to walk at some point in the marathon before due to various problems, had Scott make a run to within a heart-stopping 11 seconds of him on the Natural Energy Lab road downhill, 17 miles into the race.

When they reached the flats, Welch held. Then Welch made a move on the NEL uphill and Scott had no more magic jet fuel left and settled back for second. Welch's 2:48.58 marathon got him home in 8:20.27 on one of the hottest days in Ironman history.

Dave Scott's 8:24.32 at age 40 was faster than all six of his Ironman wins. "This is my greatest athletic achievement times 40," said Scott afterward, as he led his sons Drew and Ryan by the hand down Alii Drive, basking in the thunder of well-deserved cheers.

Devlin, still fretting about lost time on the swim, ran six minutes slower than Scott's 2:53.28 marathon and finished third in 8:31.56. As an augury of things to come, Germans led by Zack earned 6 of the first 15 places.

Newby-Fraser, suffering in a heat-absorbing black bathing suit and a too fast bike pace, hung in in the heat for an eight-minute win over Karen Smyers, whose 3:18.53 marathon was fastest of the day. Newby-Fraser's 9:20.14 pace was her slowest since 1987.

Wheelchair triathlete Dr. Jon Franks, struggling in the intense heat as he powered his hand-cranked recumbent bicycle, just missed the 5:35 pm cutoff to continue on to the run course. Although offered a waiver to continue by race officials, Franks declined, saying he did not want to have any special favors done for wheelchair athletes.