Somehow a picture of me at the 2000 Sydney Olympics made onto the 2010 Asian Games banner. Quite an honour, considering I’m sharing the space with Eneko Llanos (swimming) and Michellie Jones ( cycling)

A lot of people dont know that I raced road tris for 2 decades before I dipped my hairy Cave toes into the murky XTERRA waters. During the early 90s I raced 6 seasons in France and South Africa. Then came the 2000 Olympics in Sydney- triathlons’ Olympic debut- where I broke away on the bike with Olivier Marceau and lead for quite a while.

In 2001 I started racing seriously in the USA and did my 1st XTERRA. 2001 was probably my best season on and off road. Here is a bit where I won the 2001 Chicago Mrs Ts Triathlon (ahead of Greg Bennett). Article and pics of Caveman in Speedo here.

Its interesting looking back to what we used to wear just a short few years ago. That short funny Speedo top in the Sydney photo was the very 1st generation Shark skin which is so controversial now. They fit so tight (and badly) it felt more like a “Sausage skin”.

Now with the new FINA rules, maybe we’ll make the full circle to speedos and tank tops…

Winning All African ITU title at Club Mykono 1998

Club Mykonons on the West coast of South Africa is 2 hrs north of Cape Town. It used to be a quiet, quaint rip off of  the village Mykonos, Greece.  The ocean always freezing- the swim was in the marina- for one of the turn buoys you had to go between the hulls of a huge catamaran.  Once you go inland it gets very hot, glaringly bright, with the wind always pumping.

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I went from this:

Roodewalshoek, Lydenburg, South Africa (Yes, that is a Cheryl Crow speedo)

To this:

Reno, Nevada, USA