Back in the 70’s, the forerunner of today’s Belfast Marathon attracted fields of down to four. In fact, in one memorable race, there was but one finisher: the four starters set off at an insane pace, two were quickly weeded to the roadside, and then with around 20 miles gone the second of the two remaining found himself so far adrift that he dropped out. No sooner done than news fed back from the front that the leader was in dire straits and walking. Cajoled by his supporters the drop-out restarted, caught the leader who himself then dropped out, and struggled on to win. Seemingly shambolic perhaps, but that winner, John McLaughlin, went on to run a 2h 15m in the following years. Who’s running that fast here nowadays? Marathon running then was an esoteric pastime for real runners and beyond the ken of a pedestrian population.

Jim Fixx was soon to be shaking Americans out of their armchairs and into a running boom which spread an epidemic of mass-participation marathons across the western world. But amongst the new breed there were those for whom a mass challenge was no challenge; they needed a new twist, a new flavour to their burger, something to set them apart. And they saw it in a new niche nutcase-American fad: Triathlon. Competitors, we learnt, would swim in the surf, then without even a quick towelling, jump on their bikes to ride vast distances, and follow that finally with a sun-baked road run. It was just mad enough, and importantly, just doable enough, to satisfy that urge to be slightly different, perhaps slightly superior. This was not crossing Antarctica on foot, sled and frostbite, but for the semi-detached parent of 2.4 children, it was an expression of individuality. And unlike real adventure, it was fun.

Thanks to Con O’Callaghan of the local Sports Council, triathlon arrived in Ireland before many European countries, including, incidentally, England, Wales and Scotland. And one of our own men, runner Desi McHenry, contested that first race late in the summer of '82. He finished the Craigavon-based 4 mile run, ½ mile swim, 6 mile cycle, ½ mile swim, 2 mile cycle - they don’t make ‘em like they used to - in a non-controversial third place. But true to his mould and prescient of many teething-troubles in local triathlon, Desi jointly won an event the following year crossing the finish line in the wrong direction, something which rankled to no small degree with swimmer Tom Heaney who thought he was winning as he arrived up the finish straight in the correct direction. Crossing finish lines in opposite directions was still an occurrence as late as 1990 when Kevin Morgan won in Tralee - two minutes after Dublin’s Tilly brothers had inadvertantly shortcutted to short-lived victory. That marshalling has progressed significantly since then is moot.

Triathlon then was for the hard and carefree; wetsuits were banned and Irish tansition areas were often flashed scenes of public, goose-pimpled, duo-gender nudity. Aero bars were not yet dreamed of, far from it - bikes ranged from the latest butcher’s delivery model to the pedigree road racer. Anything that could go, would go. And as one story goes, by the time a prominent well-fed Dublin counsel toodled into the harbour-side Transition 2 on his protesting, mini-wheeled, town-gent’s foldaway, the race bar him was over, gantries had been dismantled, and he was left looking very much a lonely man caught on the wrong side of the dock.

Many triathletes used the Long Distance Swimming Association’s short swims as practise for wetsuitless triathlons. The reason triathletes were generally hopeless at the things was that triathletes, it was tenuously argued, were fit and skinny and didn’t possess the natural thermoprotection of the bulkier sea swimmers. That the very best sea swimmers were also slim was set aside as one might a biblical paradox. Early triathlon bike-section miles were risky, numb-toed, I-couldn’t-feel-the-brake-lever episodes of hopeful enthusiasm and what-am-I-doing-here? naval contemplation. 

Somewhere in the thick of it all a small band of pioneers gravitated to Olympia Leisure Centre for much-needed swim practise. Coached by Neill Grainger, whom is still to be found on the fringes of triathlon, the fast lane, which was not particularly fast, was our current slow lane, and the slow lane, which made our current slow lane look like barracuda, was our current fast lane. Swim sessions consisted of a fairly typical thrashing out of mindless lengths followed by ten minutes of a mixed, no-holds-barred corruption of water-polo or, on one occasion, a surreal  bastardization of the rudiments of synchronized swimming: they could have sold tickets to watch that pool-load of spluttering, knob-kneed old men raising legs like broken masts to an incredulous café-window gallery. 

Long distance sea swimmer, Anne Mageean was part of that set (but of the slender-kneed sylph variety), and a fast-lane leader at that. In 1984, Anne and five others, including an instrumental Jim Lavery, conspired to form a closet cabal with designs on stirring the loose collection into a constituted club. And so OLYMPIAN TRIATHLON CLUB was born.

Marathon runner, Kevin Morgan, already Ulster Triathlon Champion in his first year, was an early convert from the fledgling Andersonstown Tri Club which never really made it off the ground. In those early years, Anne, Kevin and Jim effectively ran the club - and, with Con O’Callaghan, the UBITA - through a small committee. Soon, there were weekly group run and cycle sessions, calendars, coaching courses, marshalling courses, organizers’ courses, rules and regulations, sponsors, a 16-event 1600-competitor Milk-Tryathlon series, schools’ championships and more, and Olympian members had a pivotal role in almost all of it. Leading the way, it was Olympian Triathlon Club which, against much criticism, pushed through the compulsory hardshell bike helmet law, long before the cycling authorities saw fit to follow suit.

But triathlon is principally about competition, and OTC has had more than its fair share of excellent competitors:

During an unbroken series of wins including Irish Championships, Alison Hamilton finished 20th in the 1993 Manchester World Championships in the star-packed elite category. Alison achieved national representation in rowing, running and triathlon. She would admit to rowing being her first love, and that’s were she found it; Alison married New Zealand Olympic bronze medallist rower, Wilfred Prismhooter III, and is currently racing to beget enough babies to complete a family coxless four.

Also in 1993, Eugene Galbraith was outsprinted for 3rd in the World Championships 20-24 age category, a race won by Tim DeBoom of Ironman fame. Earlier that year in Wicklow, Eugene had won the Irish Olympic Distance Championship by a full eight minutes while posting the fastest time in each discipline. His string of victories included three Irish Senior and three Irish Junior titles. Most impressive was his cycling, evidenced by his 53min Ulster record for 25 miles. At his best, Eugene was effectively unbeatable on the local scene, one of his most treasured wins being a record-setting Liam Ball where he undercut the figures of powerhouse Englishman, Richard Hobson. 

2h28m marathon runner Kevin Morgan had won the Ulster Championship, the Ulster Grand Prix and the Irish National Series before his best race, the 1990 Irish ½-Ironman Championship in Sligo, where he posted 3h50m  - still a record - to win by 17mins ahead of Owen Fahy of the USA, with Noel Munnis, a former Olympian swim coach and multiple triathlon title holder, third. Kevin finished third-in-agegroup in the 1998 Roth Ironman in 9h45m and later that year went one better in finishing World No2 agegrouper in the Hawai’i Ironman World Championships. He has also won the Irish Veterans’ title on a number of occasions and has an olympic distance silver medal from the European Masters in Finland.

Aidan O’Callaghan has been a long-time stalwart of the club and is the current Irish Veterans’ Sprint Champion, a title he added to his several wins when finishing amongst the elites in Kinsale last year.

For some time now a member of Olympian, Desi McHenry totted up countless race wins, including the Irish Veterans’ title, as a member of Innisfree. He was an early Hawai’i Ironman competitor and tirelessly seems to line up for just about every race on the calendar.

Hushed voices have referred to Steven Richmond as sex on legs, but most of those men have now left the club. It’s unclear as to whether it’s a mince, pose, affection or just the gait of the veritable natural, but whatever it is, it’s turning heads, often to ten metres behind his behind to see the leader coming to start his last lap. This does not easily account for a sterling sub-11-hour 2002 Ironman Austria, but then completion of the course is left to trust.
Trudy Brown claims as her major achievement a dogged compeletion of the tw-day 208 miles 1998 Maracycle on two Fig Rolls, six pints of a black rehydration fluid, and a sole 40 miles preparatory training toodle.  However, as Ireland’s 2003 National Series Champion there is more to say about Trudy. That will wait, however, until she sedulously details her wondrous feats.
Lots of others have also performed with considerable success: Joanne Bingham, John McLaughlin, Clare White, Rachael Hamilton, etc, but until they pass on the information they will remain unsung heroes.

Over the last few years an influx of spirited new blood has breathed a new vibrancy into Olympian, the success of the Castlewellan event being but one consequence and, in turn, its success a spur to further success. 2003 saw the inception of  a much-need revamped constitution which, for one, tilts at the long-ignored challenge of youth development, the most important ingredient for Olympian’s longevity.