Provo

Brigham Young, Brigham Old,
To the race that we now hold,
Come triathletes far and wide,
Northeast! I say, from Oceanside

Across the plains we came in carts
To found a home in yonder parts
We then invited all to hasten,
Ride our rail built thru the Basin

One-hundred-thirty-three years later
We've a race on Triathalator
No waves, 'tis true, nor sands bleached clean
But IQ slots? Up I-15

Tho' California's loss seems dear
Blondes and hunks need never fear
We may've taken your race, aw shucks
Yet you've got what we don't—Starbucks

Bad poetry now out of the way, here is the Slowtwitch take on the recent Iron news.

Though there be weeping and gnashing of teeth on the West Coast, it's good, on balance, that IM Utah replaces IM California.

Utah is a desert in more ways than one. There is no triathlon infrastructure there. Yes, there are triathletes in Utah, but there are probably Hare Krishnas there, too, and in about similar numbers. Heck, other than a few fur trappers (who reported that the Great Salt Lake was an arm of the Pacific Ocean) white man wasn't even in Utah 160 years ago. It's barely settled (which is to say properly settled, but newly settled).

You could drop a large atomic device over the Bonneville Salt Flats––one that would wipe out everthing within a 400-mile radius––and, when the dust settled, along with (among others) Karl Malone, John Stockton, one or two good college quarterbacks and some bighorn sheep, you'd have taken out about 150 triathletes.

This has always been a problem for the sport in America. Geographic distribution of triathletes in the U.S. has not been unlike it is in Australia. We've got a lot of them on each edge with a sprinkling at the top and bottom. But not a lot in the arid middle.

Now we've got an Ironman in Alice Springs.

The difference here is, our Alice Springs has 1.5 million people living next to it.

Here's what will happen in Provo over the next four years. IM Utah will be a big hit. Not initially as big a hit as IM California, but it'll fill. The race will require 3,000 to 4,000 volunteers who, along with several thousand spectators, will watch us all do our thing.

These volunteers and spectators will react the same way they do all over the world: They'll get all teary-eyed and motivated and want to do a triathlon themselves––a short one.

So you'll find a half-dozen new races on the schedule within a couple of years, and the local bike shops will start carrying more tri-specific gear, and the local tri clubs will grow, and one day we'll wake up and find that an Olympic distance race in the Salt Lake City metro area is drawing 1,200 people, or more. Then come the Danskin or Nike women's races, which will draw 1,800 women, and we'll be asking, "Where did all these women come from?"

In other words, Utah will have joined Illinois, Michigan, Florida, Texas, California, et al, as a state with a triathlon industry.

Meanwhile, back in Oceanside, triathlon isn't leaving. In fact, it's an even bet that IM California itself isn't going anywhere. Oceanside realizes what it needs to do to keep this race, and next year it's entirely possible that the race will be here, though just as a half-Ironman. Personally, I'd be happy if it stayed just a half. We need more half-Ironmans in this world. But it's a distinct possibility that the race will be reinstated as a full in 2003, which will give Graham Fraser his complement of six North American races.

Why would IM California be reinstated? Because it's a proven success, there is an infrastructure here––a race director and staff, volunteers, powerful local boosters like Competitor Magazine's Bob Babbitt—and a willing city.

And, of course, there's a gaggle of really peeved West Coast triathletes (most of whom would be less animated if they eschewed their Starbucks Grande––and I know whereof I speak).

If this race didn't move to Utah, I'd still have an Ironman that starts 20 minutes from my house. Now that the race has moved, I'll still have a spitload of races that start anywhere from 20 to 60 minutes from my house. I'll be fine. But now America's beautiful canyon country will have its own triathlon industry.

(NOTE: Those with a historic bent who wish to consider the history of the place in which the newest Ironman will be run can read up on one of the most daring feats of community initiative in the entire history of the world: The emigration of an entire population westward, to an unknown land, in the 1840s, which actually did take place with hand-drawn carts. Furthermore, there is a rich history of enterprise in metro Salt Lake City, most notably the construction of the mid-section––and most difficult part––of the Union Pacific's leg of the transcontinental railroad through the Wasatch Mountains. Not by the Chinese or the Irish, but entirely by Mormons. How stoic and thrifty Utahans will react, though, to age-groupers grocery shopping clad in nothing but skimpy Speedos and flip-flops will be interesting to watch).