By Timothy Carlson

It was a fitting stage for the most dramatic Gatorade Ironman Triathlon in history.

The wind was blowing so hard that triathletes expected chunks of lava to come rolling across the Queen K Highway like tumbleweeds. "People said it was blowing 25 mph," Mark Allen chuckled afterward. "It was easily 45 mph or more. I know. I had to forget the aero bars and hang on for my life on the drop bars."

Jurgen Zack, who could not match Thomas Hellriegel's pace because of a cold, said at one point, "I was on the smallest gear of my smallest chainring and was pulling away from the pack. For a time I was going under 10 mph." This from one of the most feared cyclists in the world.

The wind was so fierce that every athlete over 70 years old--normally swamping the finish-line chute with inspiring winners in the late hours--missed the cutoff time on the bike. Later competitors, suffering both the vicious headwinds on the way to Hawi and on the way back when the wind's direction switched, took it on the chin as well.

John Maclean of Australia, the second Ironman wheelchair competitor, also was hurt by the fickle weather and missed the bike cutoff time of 5:35 by 20 minutes. However, race officials gave him a waiver to continue; Maclean took advantage and was well on his way to finishing the run within the midnight cutoff late Saturday night.

And 295-pound Darryl Haley, the 34-year-old former NFL offensive lineman for Boston and Cleveland, stirred the hearts of fans when he made the swim cutoff time by one scant minute. The whole pier at Kailua cheered and Darryl high-fived hundreds of fans for 10 minutes, then sat back, put on some deodorant, changed clothes, got hydrated and chomped down some energy bars before taking off into the wind.

Haley, with his powerful thighs, passed James Ward with a few miles to go and made the bike cutoff by a few minutes, allowing him to continue on his Quixotic task of finishing the Ironman. At the bike cutoff, cheers also rang out for the personable and charismatic Haley as he took off up the hill at the Kona Surf to keep his date with the finish line.

Contender Peter Kropko of Hungary had a bad day. Then it got worse. He hit a dog two miles from the end of the bike leg and broke his collarbone.

Mark Allen ran the third fastest marathon in Hawaiian Ironman history--a 2:42.05--to run down hard-charging breakaway cyclist Thomas Hellriegel, who had built up a 12-minute lead. After his victory in 8:20.34, Allen was drawn and pale and threw up four times on the way to the medical tent to get IVs to replenish that empty feeling.

But all of this was just a prelude to an incomparable career finale for Paula Newby-Fraser.

Newby-Fraser set the stage by announcing her retirement from Ironman before this, her 11th Ironman. She was confident, having come to this competition rested, trained and without injury for the first time in several years. "There will be no excuses," she said. "This will be their last shot at me." Chances appeared slim for her challengers as she tore into the headwind like a falcon to extend an 11:30 lead over Smyers.

"I had a great swim and came out right with Paula," said Smyers, "I thought, 'This is great. I'll just follow her for a while.' Then Jeff Devlin and some guys came along and I thought, 'These guys beat me on the bike by 45 minutes. So I'll just back off' and I'll let them go. But Paula is such a fighter, must have thought: 'Oh good! Somebody to ride with!' The winds hit real hard and I let them go and Paula went with them. Before I knew it there was a huge gap which I could not make up. There were many moments when things deteriorated from there and I was pretty much on my own for the rest of the ride. I tried to keep the damage to a minimum, but I was having a tough day, especially into the headwinds. I thought it was all over for me. But people were great and kept yelling and wouldn't let me give up so I just kept plugging."

Newby-Fraser came off the bike with a lead of 11 and a half minutes, prompting her fiance to predict victory. "In the Ironman, it's never over 'til it's over. But with a lead like that, with Paula, and her history, it's over," said Paul Huddle, announcing the race live for local television.

Then Smyers, on her way to an Ironman third-best women's marathon of 3:05.20, kept chipping away at Newby-Fraser's lead and whittled it down to three minutes as they left the Natural Energy Lab Road with 6.2 miles to go. By then, Newby-Fraser was feeling the effects of her bike ride and was starting to skip some aid stations in panic after she heard reports of Smyers' approaching "footsteps."

By the end of the downhill on Palani Road, with less than a mile left, Newby-Fraser had carefully doled out her energy cards until she still had one minute left. "I knew if I stayed on my feet, I could still win, although it might be cut down to 10 or 15 seconds," said Newby-Fraser.

Then the improbable combined with the impossible to create the indelible drama that will live in Ironman history.

"I thought I was stretching myself on the bike but as I started the run I thought I was well within myself," said Newby-Fraser. "I felt comfortable and when I started running I actually felt pretty good. And you know the bottom line was that Karen had a spectacular run. She was bearing down on me the whole way. Logically she still shouldn't have caught me but by the time I got out of the Energy Lab, I realized I was suffering from some heat exhaustion. So I ate a banana and felt better and thought I would be able to make it."

Newby-Fraser took a deep breath and recounted the last moments. "I could feel it coming on and I think it was the pressure of being in front. Everybody was going: 'Just put one foot in front of the other.' I thought I would arrive at the finish line with 10 or 15 seconds in hand. But I was just blowing through the last three or four aid stations and by the time I came down the hill on Palani Road, I was weaving all over the road. I stopped at one point and said: 'I can't finish.' I was starting to lose consciousness. It is just one of those things that happened. I know it kind of looked like something out of a movie. I can't believe it. Even now, as I look back on it, I think: 'Why couldn't I have kept going another 200 yards?' But there was no way. I actually thought that I had given my life to this race and I was going to die. I felt like I was going into seizure. When I sat down on the road, there as no way I could move. I said, 'Just take another step,' and there was no way I could do it. There was a moment when I thought I was going to be taken to the hospital. But, I wanted to finish. Even if I had to walk across the line."

Newby-Fraser says she was not really conscious of Smyers going by her. "I was sorry that what happened to me might have taken away from her really superior effort," said Newby-Fraser.

In fact, Smyers says she only saw Newby-Fraser when she was 50 yards behind her and accelerated like she was shot through with a jolt of electricity. "When I saw Paula, I had been chasing, chasing, chasing her all day long and I just thought I didn't have much time to catch her and I basically sprinted for about 50 yards. I thought, 'There she is! Quick! Get her!' So I was running very fast as I came up to her. And she stopped a couple steps before I got there. And she kind of fell into me almost. So I kind of had to straighten her up. And to be honest I had been in this mode of Go! Go! Go!, getting 30 seconds here and there. So I could not get out of that mode of run fast and pass her! Even about 200 meters later, I looked back to see if she was coming back at me. I had no idea she was feeling that bad. I knew she was struggling, but I thought for sure she would at least be able to jog it in. I waited at the finish line for five or 10 minutes for her to come across and congratulate her. I didn't know how bad she was."

Looking back on it emotionally, Smyers said, "I know that happens to a lot of people in this race when you dig that deep. I think it is actually when she finished [that] I started crying. Just because I know what a tough experience it was for her to dig that deep and get up and still finish."

Paula looked back on it and felt badly not for herself but for Smyers. "I didn't want what happened to me to take away from what an awesome race she had," she said. "Truly she made it a great race. And she snatched it at the 11.9th hour. And you know what? She did. And I don't want what had happened to me to take away from that. Unfortunately I feel badly that this is going to be on TV everywhere. The drama of it, you know? I just think she had a very brilliant race."

Newby-Fraser says she accepts what happened. "It hasn't diminished my status. Nothing can take away from that, because I finished. Sort of deep down I know that it was not for me. I had always said I wanted to do 10 of these. But I pushed the envelope and came back for 11."

Newby-Fraser said the exhaustion of doing an Ironman is "a cumulative effect over the years. I know what it takes to win an Ironman. It takes a supreme effort. And that was a supreme effort today. And nobody can take that away from me. I led that race for all but the last 300 yards. And it was absolutely everything I could do. There wasn't any more."

Paul Huddle said he immediately sensed something was seriously wrong. "At the finish line they had me ready with a green lei. Then they told me something was wrong. Then I heard Paula was lying down, and I knew it wasn't right. I ran out to where she was and I saw she was surrounded by camera people and you couldn't breathe the air. She was telling people to get away but it was so dramatic, and they just stayed.

"My gut instinct was, 'Let's call 911, call a doctor, get her to the hospital.' But then I talked to her and I realized she was coherent. She just wanted people to get away from her. But she couldn't obviously vocalize that strong enough and she was really dazed and told people to stop touching her and leave. It was like a car crash and everyone wants to see, saying 'Jesus is with you.' Right then she didn't need Jesus, she needed a doctor and some breathing room. But they still wanted to touch her. She said, 'I just wanted to get to the finish line. I may take until midnight and cross with Darryl [Haley] but I will do it on my own.'

Then Huddle talked to Paula and she laughed. "I joked, 'You've always dreamed about being able to stop and sit down by the side of the road at an Ironman. Now you've got your dream,'" he said. "Then she laughed and said 'That's right.' Then she said: 'I just want to sit down here for awhile.' Then I knew it was okay. But I do think the camera people sucked. I thought they sucked when they stuck by Julie Moss in 1982 when she crawled. I thought they sucked when they sat in Jan Ripple's face while she was cramping near the finish in 1987. And I thought they sucked today. Why don't they have a sense of integrity or decency to leave people have their private moments of pain? I know why--because it is a public arena and because of the drama. I understand that is going to be a good shot and their desire to make a great TV show."

What made Huddle worry so about Newby-Fraser?

"I had seen her a year previous where she ended up in a hospital overnight with internal bleeding and the rest of it and I just saw that coming. I saw this happen to her at Monterey Bay in 1986 and I thought she was going to die then. But now this is the beginning of a new chapter."

Newby-Fraser's neighbor and fellow triathlete, Mike Pigg, who watched what happened to Paula from the TV booth, said, "In a poetic and sad way, this was Paula's finest hour. She gave it everything she had."