Heart of a Champion

by Patrick Lindsay

  This was a time when Greg and the others competed for the love of the sport. With prize winnings, the top performers could cover their costs and come out slightly ahead, but triathlon was essentially a lifestyle choice. Each weekend, Greg and his mates would throw their bikes and gear into their cars and drive to competitions in Nowra or Newcastle or some other seaside town. They’d race, collect their prize money, drive back home and spend the winnings on the Sunday at McDonald’s or their local pub. Then they’d be back up again the next weekend.

  By early 1989 the word was out that Greg Welch was special. The newspapers were saying he would be the star of the season. Greg was a heavy favourite for the Royal National Park Triathlon, particularly as he was one of the ‘bushies’, a group who actually trained in the Park. The distance—1.6-km (1-mile) swim, 42-km (26.2-mile) bike race and 17-km (10.6-mile) run—was considered perfect for him.

  During the race, Greg swam and rode solidly. Coming off the bike into the run, he was behind Mick Maroney, Greg Stewart and Rick Pallister. He exploded after them like a madman, determined to run them down as soon as he could. He soon bolted past them, but around the 10-km (6.2-mile) mark, Greg blew up and faded to finish a disappointing ninth. He was shattered, especially given the high expectations. But he still lacked the experience and patience to wait for the right time to surge.

  A rumour went around the traps that perhaps Greg couldn’t handle the pressure of competition. It didn’t last long.

  Racing at Lake Macquarie, Greg came out of the swim with Mick Maroney. They powered off on their bikes, and after 20 km (12.4 miles), they’d built up a 3-minute lead. Mick was one of the best riders in Australia and he was confident he could smash Greg on the hilly course. Mick went as hard as he could but he couldn’t budge Greg, who stuck to Mick’s rear wheel. Still, Mick thought he’d done enough on the bike to destroy Greg’s running legs. ‘We got off the bike and there was a transition area which you had to run around before you came out and hit the road. By the time Greg was on the road, I reckon he had 40 seconds on me. And I didn’t do anything slower. I looked up and he was just running off into the distance. I came second, 4 minutes behind Greg. The guy behind me was 4 minutes later, so essentially Greg beat the first three guys by 8 minutes. We just looked at the run times. It was 10 km (6.2 miles) and he ran it in 31 minutes. That’ll win a top fun run, without the swim and the bike. And that was it. Everyone just thought—Greg’s on fire.’

  Greg went from strength to strength. In May 1989, he won selection on the Australian team of five men and two women for the first International Triathlon World Short-Course Championships in Avignon, France. The team had seven races scheduled in eight weeks. He was delighted by his selection but was worried because he didn’t have enough money for the trip. His boss Arthur Blizzard helped him out by giving him two months off, and friends organised fundraisers so Greg and team-mate Louise Bonham could pay for their air fares.

  In Sydney, Greg, Brad Bevan, Nick Croft, Spot Anderson, Sue Turner and Louise Bonham boarded the plane. The team manager Geoff Frost had pre-ordered vegetarian or fish meals for his charges. One of Greg’s pet hates is fish: ‘Sydney to Singapore, fish. Singapore to Bahrain, fish.

  Bahrain to Rome, bloody fish. Rome to Paris, effing fish again! I was thinking, “I hope things get better as this trip goes on!”’

  They didn’t—at least for some time. The logistic problems started as soon as they arrived at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris after a 36-hour flight. Seven tired athletes, with seven bikes and assorted other baggage, tried to fight their way onto the Metro. They had to split up and regroup at the Gare de Lyon. There they hit the next snag. The rail authorities would only allow four bikes on the carriage. Geoff Frost delivered the news and appointed Greg, the oldest, as team captain of the group that wasn’t travelling by train. As Greg was also the only athlete with a credit card— he’d applied for his first one just before he flew out—he was deputised to rent a mini-truck and drive down to the venue at Macon, in the Burgundy region, about 350 km (217.5 miles) south-east of Paris. Frostie gave Greg a note detailing their contacts in Macon and headed off to catch the train, taking Spot Anderson, Louise Bonham and Sue Turner, and leaving Brad Bevan and Nick Croft to drive with Greg and all their team-mates’ baggage.

  After many attempts, Greg finally found a rental agency with one truck left. They loaded it up and headed off through the peak hour traffic in Paris, with Greg driving. Just as he did all the way on the plane, Brad slept with his head on Greg’s shoulder. After a couple of hours, Greg started to feel sleepy and handed the wheel to Croftie. They headed off again, Greg fighting back sleep in an effort to help keep Croftie alert, but he just couldn’t keep his eyes open. ‘The next thing I knew I was woken by the van wobbling madly. Croftie had fallen asleep and the van was heading for a ditch at the side of the freeway. The stuff in the back was going all over the place. I snapped out of it, grabbed the steering wheel and straightened it up.’

  It was 9 in the evening when they reached Macon. The town was in almost complete darkness—no hotels open, no restaurants, nothing.

  When Greg checked out the note from Frostie, he found it contained a single phone number. Croftie tried his schoolboy French on the phone. It seemed he’d rung a caretaker or cleaner whose English was worse than Croftie’s French. It turned out Frostie had given Greg the work number of the person who was to provide their billet. ‘We didn’t know what was going on. So we started driving around again, looking for a hotel. We eventually found one. It was closed but through the window we could see a woman doing her accounts. After a lot of knocking and pleading we found she had one room left…with one bed for the three of us!’

  It was the middle of the French summer. The room had no air conditioning and only a tiny window which the boys jammed open. After a restless night, they were woken up by the manager: Frostie had sent out a search party looking for three lost Aussie triathletes.

  The situation improved when the boys moved into their billet homes. Every night the billeting families would get together. They’d cook in one of their backyards and bring out their best wines—Macon was in the middle of the famous Beaujolais district. Greg’s patron told him he’d break out a magnum of his best champagne if he won the race that weekend. Greg duly claimed the prize after he won the first race, beating France’s number one, Philippe Methion, with Brad Bevan finishing third. Everyone came over to Greg’s billet, and they polished off 20 bottles of the district’s best product.

  Then it was on to the next race at Coucouron, in beautiful mountainous country in the Rhone Alps region. The tall, blond and blue-eyed Croftie was the star turn there, captivating many of the local mademoiselles, who fought over the right to accompany him to the town ball. Greg once again took the honours in the race.

  At Munich, the team was met with a huge press conference in the town centre, the Marienplatz. The German champion Jurgen Zack headlined a strong local contingent, and Rob Barel had arrived from the Netherlands. The race was to be held at one of the 1972 Olympics venues. The swim leg was in front of a 30 000-capacity grandstand and was an unusual straight-line course, from the 1500 m (0.9 miles) mark down the canal, then back to the zero mark. Here the bike changeover led to a 5-km (3.1-mile) loop around the canal, which would also serve as the run course. In the days leading up to the race, the team visited the German State Rowing Academy, where they were fascinated to observe the local system of scouting for prospective champions through the schools. Promising youngsters were brought to the academy and then tested to see if they were made of the right stuff. To Greg it was an alien concept—essentially he felt that sport should be something that came out of sheer enjoyment.

  In the race, Greg was again the pacesetter, but he came off second best in a stride-for-stride sprint to the finish with Rob Barel, the European champion. The next day the Aussie team travelled back to France—another 9-hour trip—through the magnificent Alps to Avignon in the south for the World Triathlon Champion
ships.

  Again, Greg, Brad and Croftie had to share a tiny room—three bikes, three sets of gear and three very sweaty Australians in one double bed. Then they scrounged a stretcher and spent two weeks taking turns to sleep on it in the 40°C (104°F) heat. There was no fan, no wind and no air conditioning. ‘They were horrific conditions but it was hilarious. Although we had the best time with each other, we had a bad race.’

  On the strength of his earlier race wins, Greg had lined up for the World Triathlon Championships as one of the favourites. He was confident, perhaps even a little cocky. But early in the swim he was belted by a flailing arm, lost his goggles and was forced under by the weight of the pack. By the time he resurfaced, he was waterlogged, minus his goggles and battling to maintain contact. Over the shorter Olympic road distance he was unable to make any real impact and he finished a disappointing 45th, well behind the winners Mark Allen, Rick Wells and Glenn Cook. (Of the Aussies, Miles Stewart’s performance was the best—he came in fourth.)

  From Avignon, the team headed to Paris, just in time to briefly join in the Centenary celebrations for the Eiffel Tower. ‘We arrived there at 6 o’clock at night and we had to leave at the crack of dawn the next day. But we didn’t want to miss a treat, so we went to the Eiffel Tower, and walked around town. I don’t think we slept. We went straight to the airport and on to Vancouver, except for Croftie, who went back home because he’d run out of money.’

  In Vancouver, after a swimming session, the group was riding back to their various billets when Louise Bonham was hit by a car driven by a local man. Her shoulder and ankle were broken, and she was badly cut and bruised. The others saw Louise safely off to hospital and then they had to race. Again Greg raced brilliantly, coming third in another blanket sprint finish with Mike Pigg and Kenny Glah.

  Louise eventually made the long trip home, where she spent weeks in hospital. She didn’t race for a year. ‘Poor Louise was off the scene for a long time. There was a big court case. The car driver passed away not so long after that. He was old. But it wrecked her career. It was very, very sad. I always thought Louise had the potential to win the Hawaiian Ironman.’ But she did fight back, winning two Australian Ironman titles and finishing ninth at Hawaii in 1991.

  Next the Aussies flew on to Chicago where the race director Tom Cooney, who would later become a great friend of Greg’s, squired them around. ‘Tom had such a good time that he drove us up to Toronto for the next race—a 9-hour trip. There we met some people who’ve become lifelong friends. I raced really well again. Mike Pigg, Rick Welsh and I had a sprint to the line and I came third again. But it was a big, big stepping stone for me.’

  Greg came home on a huge high. He’d had an amazing run on the tour and ended up as the clear winner in the prize pool. ‘I had earned more money than I would have earned in six months on my job—$US5000. It was great, I was dishing out money, writing IOUs. I think people still owe me money. We had a great time. I was 24 years old, away doing triathlon, getting paid and drinking beer. How good was that?’

  Back at Plaster Linings, Arthur Blizzard was just as delighted with Greg’s success. Arthur was a passionate lover of both sports and sportspeople. For many years he was president of the Australian Auto Cycle Union. He gave the Australian World 500 cc World Champion Wayne Gardner his first ride and was instrumental in fostering the career of dirt-bike champion Steven Gall, later known as Mr Motocross. He urged Greg to give serious thought to focusing on his triathlon career full-time. But Greg was still uncertain. He settled back into his usual routine, working six days and fitting in his training before and after work. ‘I earned good money on the trip, but Arthur had a lot of work, so I had to make sure that I fulfilled my agreement to be a worker.’

  Although he worked hard, Plucky and his mates always had time for fun…and a little larrikinism. One Saturday after work, at about 4 o’clock, Greg went for a training session on the sandhills behind Wanda Beach with John Southwell, Paul Warmsley and Rick Pallister. They spent an hour and a half running up and down the magnificent dunes there; the scene was reminiscent of the British runners Eric Liddell and Harold Abrahams training on the beach, as depicted in the 1981 movie Chariots of Fire. (In 1940 the Wanda sandhills formed the backdrop for Charles Chauvel’s war movie Forty Thousand Horsemen. Today, they’re a shadow of their former grandeur as much of the sand has been exported.)

  After their exertions, Greg and his mates adjourned to their local pub for a schooner or two of lemon squash to rehydrate. Greg planned to have just one drink because he had a dinner date with his girlfriend Leonie at her place at 7. But the lemon squash turned into a beer, and the beer turned into a couple, and the couple turned into a few more for the road. The shouts only stopped when everyone ran out of money.

  Paul’s sister picked him up, and Greg, Rick and John set off too. They passed a kebab shop and were immediately seduced by the cheeseburger aroma. John ordered three, and as he, Greg and Rick watched the burly Greek shopkeeper working his magic over the hotplate, it dawned on Greg why they had left the pub in the first place.

  The others came to the same realisation just as the shopkeeper finished wrapping the burgers, set them on the counter and began punching the cost into his cash register. John and Greg looked at each other dumbly. When they looked around, Rick had disappeared. In retrospect, Greg thinks this was hardly surprising, given that he was a police prosecutor. ‘Rick very inconspicuously back-doored us. Johnny looked at me and quietly said, “Plucky, grab the burgers.” I wasn’t thinking too clearly at this stage. So I did, and we bolted.’

  It was a strange sight: two champion triathletes, hamstrung by a gutful of beer, legging it down Cronulla Mall, closely followed by a large and very irate shopkeeper wielding an impressive kebab knife. Despite their handicap, the elite athletes were making ground on their pursuer— until Greg dropped one of the burgers. Johnny immediately yelled, ‘That’s yours, Plucky!’ As a starving, liquored-up triathlete on the run, Greg made the only sensible decision—he stopped, turned back and grabbed the burger. As Greg swept up his prize, Kebab Man lunged with his glinting weapon and missed him by a mere whisker, losing his footing in the process. In a flash, Greg turned and was around the corner before his unfortunate victim could regain his balance and continue his chase. ‘Although it was an ill-gotten gain, that cheeseburger tasted really good once we were on the train. All we had to do then was dodge the ticket collector, which was easy in those days.’

  IN OCTOBER 1989, GREG HEADED OFF to compete in his third Hawaiian Ironman feeling reasonably confident after his success in the World Triathlon Championships. But he was fully aware that those races were over the Olympic or short-course distance and the Ironman was…well, the Ironman.

  The 1989 Ironman would turn out to be what many observers regard as the greatest contest ever held on the lava fields. Going into the race, Dave Scott, famed Lord of the Lava, had six titles to his name. His great rival Mark Allen, called the Zen Master because of his ability to focus and to intimidate the competition, had never won—from his six starts, he had one failure to finish, one third place, two fifth places and two second places. In the 1989 race, the brutal contest between these two men became known as ‘Ironwar’.

  After the swim and the bike, nothing separated Scott and Allen. In an astonishing display of determination and athleticism, they swam every metre shoulder to shoulder. Scott led out of the water in 51 minutes 16 seconds to Allen’s 51 minutes 17 seconds. At the end of the 180-km (111.8-mile) bike run, Allen had made up that 1-second deficit, finishing in 4 hours 37 minutes 52 seconds to Scott’s 4 hours 37 minutes 53 seconds. So the two men began their Olympic-length marathon still attached at the shoulder. Scott set his usual relentless pace as they ran stride for stride out of the changeover. Not a word was exchanged between them as they ran, breathing and striding in perfect synchronisation, out of Kona, through the lava fields, up to the turnaround at Hawaii and back to town.

  With all eyes fixed on the engrossing ‘Ir
onwar’ up front, few noticed the slight, smiling figure ghosting through the field back along the Queen K Highway. Greg’s hard work to improve his swimming leg had paid handsome dividends, and he came out of the water in the leading pack, in 51 minutes 39 seconds, just 22 seconds behind Dave Scott. He rode strongly, finishing the bike leg in 4 hours 43 minutes 43 seconds, and headed off on the run feeling on top of the world. He was matching it with his heroes. The plasterer from the Shire was battling out the toughest Ironman race in the world on equal terms with the best professional triathletes on the planet. Greg moved easily into his favourite role—the hunter—and began the chase.

  Ahead, Dave Scott and Mark Allen were still inseparable. The only time they drifted even a few metres apart was at drink stations, where Allen had the inside running and Scott was forced to drop a few paces behind to pick up his drinks. After 38 km (23.6 miles) in tandem and with just 4 km (2.5 miles) left, Allen made his move on the last rise before the finish. Dave Scott tried to go with him but his legs wouldn’t answer the call. Mark Allen surged home, putting 58 seconds between them by the time he crossed the line in 8 hours 9 minutes 15 seconds. Allen had run the marathon in a race record time of 2 hours 40 minutes 4 seconds. His record remains to this day.

  Greg’s confidence soared as he hunted down the field. As he moved into the last 5 km (3.1 miles), he began to regret he didn’t go even harder earlier, but these feelings had evaporated by the time he turned into Ali’i Drive, the beautiful banyan tree-lined avenue along Kailua Bay leading to the finish. With less than 1 km (0.6 miles) to the finish, he passed Pauli Kiuru and then Kenny Glah to skip across the line in 8 hours 32 minutes 15 seconds—third place overall! He’d taken more than half an hour off his previous best time. He’d even beaten his friend Paula Newby-Fraser, who won her third women’s title, by a massive 27 minutes. Greg Welch had served notice that he was a world-class triathlete.