The Coolangatta Gold Ironman Event

The Ironman event (now known as the Oceanman) is one of the many disciplines of surf lifesaving sports. Not to be confused with the Ironman triathlon, this Ironman while still being an endurance race includes the three major disciplines in surf lifesaving namely running, swimming, and board paddling. Many surf lifesaving clubs organize events where there’s an ironman race, but the one that is really worth winning is the famous Coolangatta Gold race.

The Coolangatta Gold is the original Ironman endurance event. The course involves a 23 kilometre surf ski leg which starts from Surfers Paradise up to Greenmount and then the journey will head back north with a beach run from Greenmount to Coolangatta that has a distance of a little more than a half a kilometre. Then the race continues with a 3 and a half kilometre swim to Bilinga, and then another 3.5 kilometre beach run to Currumbin and a 5.5 kilometre board paddling stage before the final stage, a tortuous 10 kilometre beach run from Burleigh Heads back to the starting point which is Surfer’s Paradise.

The race was made famous by the movie of the same name. The movie starred Grant Kenny, the surf lifesaving legend, who at just the age of 16 finished the whole Ironman event in less than half an hour. The film was shot in conjunction of the inaugural race of the event, in front of a large crowd at Surfers Paradise on the Gold Coast.

The first Coolangatta Gold was won by a then unheralded 18 year old from Manly named Guy Leech. He also participated and won the Gold the following year and went on to become one of the most famous athletes in Australian sports.

The Gold was held on 1984, 1985, 1991 and 1992 using the original rules and regulations, but in 2005 the Gold was revitalized and reformatted to please modern audiences. The - New Gold - is now organized by Surf Life Saving Australia and now includes a shorter version of the race for women, team events, and a masters competition; and in 2007 the race was opened for non-surf lifesaving competitors, which means anyone can enter the race now.

During the years when the Coolangatta Gold was not held, the void was filled by the Uncle Tobys Super Series (Uncle Tobys is a popular cereal brand in Australia). The race followed the same course and has the same format, but since it was not organized by the SLSA it wasnt officially the Coolangatta Gold. Another difference is that the Uncle Tobys Gold was held at the afternoon and would finish at sunset, whereas the original Gold was always held in the morning.

Even though the Uncle Tobys event could not be called an official Gold race, you can certainly say that it was absolutely greater than the original Gold. The Uncle Tobys Gold was held when the sport was at its peak so the competitors are really an elite class, most of them professional lifesavers. And because of the sponsors, they were able to televise the whole event, extensive coverage was done and it reached a wider audience.

Though the Ironman race is truly fun to watch, remember that the real purpose of the race is to enhance the skills of real lifesavers. So to you it might be just a race, but what the competitors are doing might just help them save lives someday.