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Grace und Hannes Köppen

Handcycle Athletes and the Ironman World Championships - an Introduction

The Ironman Triathlon series is organized by the World Triathlon Corporation (WTC) and consists of a 2.4-mile (3.8 km) swim, a 112-mile (180km) bike ride and a 26-mile (42 km) run. This distance is usually called a long-distance triathlon. Races that belong to this series are held annually around the globe.

The pinnacle of this series is the Ironman Triathlon World Championship that is held once a year in October in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii.

The history of the Hawaii Ironman began as a bet to find out who the best athlete was (the swimmer, the biker or the runner) by combining the Waikiki Rough Water Swim, the Around Oahu Bike Ride and the Honolulu Marathon. The first race took place in 1978 on Hawaii. Only 15 people started in the race. In those days, it seemed impossible to succeed in a challenge like that.

Since the early years, sports science, training methods and nutrition have much improved. Today around 30,000 people compete in numerous Ironman races around the globe each year to win one of the 1500 slots for the Ironman World Championship.

The Ironman World Championship history is full of interesting and inspiring stories about victories and defeats; about wind, heat and waves; about perserverance, dedication and will. Most of these stories have already been told in numerous books, newspapers or magazines and some of them have even become part of the collective human memory.

But one of these stories still has be be told, data has to be collected and characters have to be introduced. It is the story of the handcycle division and its athletes that started in 1994 with the participation of Dr. John Franks.

The athletes of the handycle division (HC) use handcycles for the bike leg of the race, and racing wheelchairs for the run. Typical participants in this division are paraplegics and leg amputees. Handcycles are equipped with typical bike parts such as gear cassettes, shifters and arm-powered cranks. The handbike is classified by UCI (Union Cyclist International) rules. Race wheelchairs are more spartan devices powered by hitting pushing rings fixed on the rear wheels. The race chair is the only sports device that is allowed for use in running events by the IAAF (International Association of Athletics Federations).

Triathlon is the only sport where disabled athletes are racing together, in the same event, on the same course, at the same time, under the same rules and conditions as able-bodied athletes. That is one thing that makes the Ironman Triathlon a great and really unique competition, a level playing field for athletes of all abilities.

However it is to be noted there is no special treatment for challenged athletes with regard to the drafting rules or the cut off times. That makes racing in the handcycle division tough on one hand, but on the other hand very interesting and exciting as well.

For a handcycle athlete, the cut-off times (swim cut-off: 2:20 hrs after race start, bike cut-off: 10:30 hrs after race start and 17:00 hrs all in all for race completion) was for many years the main obstacle in the path to become an Ironman. The most frequent reason for a DNF (did not finish) in the handcycle division was the bike cut-off, particularly in the early years when handbike technology was not as advanced as it is today.

Participation at the Ironman World Championship in the very early years of handcycle triathlon depended on the negotiation skills of the athlete, however it became an official division on its own in 1998. Since that year, there have been 3 slots for the World Championship allotted to handcycle athletes at the Ironman 70.3 Buffalo Springs. Also since 2007 there are additional slots available at the Ironman 70.3 Antwerp.

Since the first attempt of Dr. Jon Franks in 1994 until the end of 2010, only 17 male athletes and 2 female handcycle athletes have finished the Hawaii Ironman:

So far, 5 women qualified and started in Hawaii but only 2 of them ever reached the finish line:

• Julia Wallace (USA)
• Monique Van der Vorst (NLD)

In 2010, Jeddie Schabort set a breathtaking new world record of 9:26:04, shortening the gap to the able-bodied competitors. With professional coaching, modern scientific methods and further advanced handbikes, there is substantial hope for future handcycle athletes to close that gap.

More Informationen (external links)

Julia Wallace
Monique van der Vorst
Jon Franks
David Bailey
Pat Doak
Carlos Moleda
John Maclean
Marc Aten
Marc Herremans
Randy Caddell
Akian Aleong
Zbynek Svehla
Hannes Koeppen
Ricky James
Michal Siska
Jason Fowler
Krige (Jeddie) Schabort
Thomas Fruhwirth