FEATURE
THE OLYMPIC EXPERIENCE
By John Martin
Triathlon took center stage in its first Olympics – the 2000 Games in Sydney, Australia.
Susan Williams’ Olympic dream began when as a 15-year-old in Long Beach, Calif., her swim coach put a televisionon the pool deck to let his team get a look at the action in the water at the 1984 Olympic Games.
Little did Williams know, that dream would become reality in a sport that was in its infancy when gold medalists Rowdy Gaines and Tracy Caulkins ruled the pool for the U.S. in Los Angeles
Williams went on to compete at the University of Alabama but never reached her ultimate goal as a swimmer. “I kind of thought a lot of athletes have a goal of making the Olympics, and there’s very few that make it, so I just kind of moved on,” Williams remembered.
But fortunately for Williams and hundreds of others, a sport that combined her first love with cycling and running – triathlon – was accepted into the Olympic program in 1994 and made its spectacular debut in Sydney in 2000.
According to Tim Yount, USA Triathlon’s senior vice president, sport development, the triathlon community felt it had arrived when it made the Olympic cut. “Up unti l that time we had one major event that served as the keystone race, and that was the Ironman,” Yount said. “(The Olympics) really did put us on the map … It really became our stepping out party to show that triathlon is more than just an ultra-distance event.”
Since its Olympic inclusion, triathlon has blossomed into one of the world’s fastest-growing sports. USA Triathlon annual membership has grown six-fold over the last decade, and, thanks to exponential growth in the numbers of USAT- certified coaches and official clubs, more and more athletes are gravitating towards the multisport lifestyle on a daily basis.
While the reasons for the sport’s growth are varied, Scott Schnitzspahn, USA Triathlon’s former sport performance director, feels Olympic inclusion certainly enhanced triathlon’s rapid expansion. “There are just so many more people now that the sport resonates with because they see it as part of the Olympics and not just that crazy thing that happens in Hawaii every October,” said Schnitzspahn, currently the USOC sport performance director.
Triathlon has undoubtedly benefited from its place on the Olympic stage, and the experience of the Games has provided the participants with memories that will last a lifetime.
Yount was a part of the U.S. staff for the Sydney Games. The Aussies have traditionally been strong in the sport, and the organizers of the 2000 Games picked triathlon as a showcase event. “Not only were we unveiled for the first time; we were the backdrop,” Yount said. “We were what they were promoting to the world as the most beautiful venue of any previous Olympic Games – and it just happened to have triathlon on top of it – and that was the (Sydney) Opera House.”
Prior to the Sydney race, the
U.S.contingent spent six weeks at a training camp in Wollongong. When the team relocated
52 USA TRIATHLON FALL 10
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