Inside Triathlon’s face lift

Now that Triathlete Magazine and IT are under the same roof, what's there to do with a second place—a badly beaten second place—title? Something else, says the smart money, besides continuing on as a faint palindrome of its healthier cousin.

I was sent an advance issue of the relaunched Inside Triathlon. It is Life Magazine of multisport, but on paper so thick and glossy and coated it's just this side of a hard cover. If the publishers of Playboy had invested this much love and care in their magazine I'd have had a more fruitful childhood.

It's about the pictures, and our sport is nothing if not photogenic. Triathletes do not suffer for information—often more than can be absorbed. Triathlete Magazine gives you the coverage and, if you just must have your news quicker, there are portals like this one. If it's talented writing you want our sport has wordsmiths—Timothy Carlson and Matt Fitzgerald among them—and it's worth the wait to read well crafted prose. And our sport has photographers.

Inside Triathlon features our sport's best photographers, offering them a medium that matches their talents. Delly Carr, John Segesta, Rich Cruse, Thierry Deketelaere are all represented here, with shots both current and vintage. Prose is added, by Bob Babbitt, Jay Prasuhn and others, but not past what is needed. Why offer a medium this rich only to produce pages of text?

What surprised me was the work of a photographer with whom I was unaware: Robert Murphy. His Kona Gallery photos were among the best triathlon action shots I've ever seen. His pics and others were displayed with Erica Krystek's spot-on art direction.

As it happens, I'm one of very few who own all the copies of Triathlon, later Triathlete, Magazine from its earliest years (1982 thru 86). Who doesn't like to go back and look at the sport still in its infancy, and see from whence we've come? Triathlete Magazine has all those scans and transparencies, and can now replay them in future issues of Inside Triathlon on a rich palette, like a restored old movie classic. Indeed, in this inaugural issue the articles and photo essays are of Kona as it was in 2008 and Kona as it was during the Mark and Dave battle of 20 Hawaiian Ironmans ago. One hopes that future issues of Inside Triathlon will always feature the old and new side-by-side.

These days what I most value in my reading material—what I most value period—is inspiration, even if it's at the occasional expense of information. If I want facts about triathlon, in paper, Triathlete Magazine is always there. Inside Triathlon will no longer deliver you that. What it now serves is content meant to reflect our avocation and inspire its adherents. Of Competitor, Inc.'s multisport publications, this one is my new favorite, and I suspect it will be yours too.

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