Why Kona Became the Most Famous Race in Triathlon

In the late 1970s, athletes on Oahu were debating who was fitter: swimmers, cyclists or runners. John and Judy Collins proposed settling it by stitching together three of the island's existing events, the Waikiki Roughwater Swim, the Around-Oahu Bike Race and the Honolulu Marathon, into one day. Whoever finished first would be called the Iron Man.

On 18 February 1978, 15 athletes started. Twelve finished. Gordon Haller, a US Navy communications specialist, won in a little under 12 hours. There were no aid stations as we know them; support crews handed athletes whatever they had.

In 1979 a Sports Illustrated writer in Hawaii for a golf event covered this strange new race. ABC's Wide World of Sports took notice and sent a crew. Entries grew fast, and by 1981 the race had outgrown Waikiki traffic and moved to the Big Island.

That move gave Ironman the setting that defines it: an ocean swim off the pier at Kailua-Kona, a bike leg along the Queen Ka'ahumanu Highway through black lava fields, and the heat, humidity and crosswinds that make Kona brutal on the day.

Julie Moss was a 23-year-old college student who entered to gather material for her exercise physiology thesis. In February 1982 she led the women's race deep into the marathon. Close to the finish, her body gave out. She fell, got up, fell again, and as Kathleen McCartney ran past to take the win, Moss crawled the last metres to the line to finish second.

ABC broadcast it. Millions of viewers watched someone refuse to quit, and the image did more for the sport than any marketing ever could. Within a year, entries were being turned away. One of the people inspired by that broadcast was a young swimmer named Mark Allen.

More than forty years on, the last 10 km is still where Kona is won and lost. In that heat, what an athlete ate and drank over the previous eight or more hours often decides whether they finish strong or walk.

Dave Scott had won Kona six times. Mark Allen had tried and failed against him for years. In 1989 the two raced shoulder to shoulder through the swim, the entire bike and most of the marathon, neither able to drop the other.

In the final few kilometres of the marathon, Allen finally pulled away. He won by 58 seconds. Both men broke the previous course record by around 20 minutes. It is still widely called the greatest race in triathlon history, and it cemented Kona as the place where legends are decided.

Australia has a proud Kona record. Greg Welch became the first Australian man to win in 1994. Michellie Jones won in 2006. Then came a golden run: Craig Alexander won in 2008, 2009 and 2011, and Mirinda Carfrae, known for some of the fastest runs in the race's history, won in 2010, 2013 and 2014.

For Australian age-groupers, that history is part of the pull. Many qualify at home in Port Macquarie, Cairns or Busselton and fly to Hawaii to race the same roads.

The championship has moved around in recent years. It ran over two days in 2022, and from 2023 the men's and women's races split between Kona and Nice. In 2026 it returned to Kona with men and women racing on the same day.

Part of Kona's appeal is that it is earned. You cannot simply enter; you qualify, or you put in years of Ironman finishes for a Legacy chance. And part of it is the course. The heat and wind turn the same distance into a different race, and that is exactly why finishing on Ali'i Drive means so much.