The Best that ever was
I’ve seen a lot of endurance athletes leveraging overwhelming talent through great strength of will. It’s been my pleasure and good fortune to see these athlete because of an accident of chronology: Most of the athletes you’d place on a “best ever” list have been racing during my 45 or so years of involvement in endurance sports. Who was the best ever, among the men who raced? I could not blame anyone for saying it was Greg Lemond, Hicham El Gerrouj, Miguel Indurain, Haile Gebrselassie. Maybe Michael Phelps or Jim Ryun.
But the best I ever saw was Mark Allen. You might find fault with this choice because Mark did none of the three sports as well as any individual sport athlete. But neither did Jackie Joyner Kersey, or Daley Thompson. And, by the way, I'm in good company. ESPN asked this very question last year, and they also chose Mark, ahead of 2nd place vote getter Bjorn Daehlie.
Mark was a natural. The first time I ever saw him in a race was in 1982, the first year he did race. It was in Long Beach, California, at the USTS race. He was already the best, and although he came up as a swimmer, he was very quickly better at running than at either of the other two sports. He was a natural runner. Lord only knows what he might’ve been as a runner, had he began as a runner.
Mark was a great swimmer. But when the event was just running and cycling he was the world’s best at that race as well. He won world championships in long distance and in short. He won consistently. He was never sick. Never off. Never had a bad race. Once he figured out Ironman, he could not be beaten. Those racing today marvel at the dominance of the Brownlee brothers and rightly so, but Mark’s remarkable streaks at Nice and at Kona will rarely if ever be challenged.
Mark’s ability on the field of play was joined by a grace and equanimity off the race course that was also rare. Those who know Mark well know that he’s got a mental and spiritual approach to sport and, really, to life, and to the joining of sport with life, that is singular.
Mark has written a book about this and, because of the images, the print, the color, it’s not an inexpensive book to publish. He’s chosen Kickstarter as the vehicle for the sale of this book. Mark allowed us to publish, as well as can be published (which is not very well, but, one does what one can), a few of these images.
Mark’s just about met his Kickstarter goal, however, if you want to be in on this production run, here is this initiative’s Kickstarter page. I encourage all of you who are triathletes, and for whom triathlon is a lifestyle and not a phase, to get to know about this remarkable man.
