Ironman Founders Judy Collins and John Collins recall their first memories of
TRIATHLON IN PANAMÁ
John and I sailed out of San Diego Bay, from Coronado, California, in June 1992. We were headed to Scotland via the Panamá Canal.
Our journey was on our cutter sailboat, a Tayana ’37, “Primo.” We liked the boat name. “Primo” had been the local beer sponsor of many popular running events in Hawai’i in the 1970’s. In 1974, in San Diego, our family was in the first triathlon in the U.S. We moved to Hawai’i in 1975 from California. Triathlon had not then reached Hawai’i. Our running and swimming in the islands led to our creation of The Hawaiian Iron Man Triathlon in 1978. We lived in Honolulu, on O’ahu. We expected to retire in Hawai’i. We didn’t.
When we had to leave Hawai’i on short notice Hank Grundman became the Race Director for the 1980 Ironman (IM). In 1981 Race Director Valerie Silk moved the Ironman to Kona, on the island of Hawai’i. By 1992 we were sailing south and east from the West coast of the U. S. Our run and swim training was a distant memory.
We arrived at the Panamá Canal on a Friday in October 1993. We went through the canal on Tuesday with a plan to continue on to Scotland by Thursday.
“Primo” and the two of us are still here in Panamá, part year, 26 years later. We became permanent residents in 1994. We sailed to the San Blas, to Cartagena, to Florida and the Bahamas in the next few years. Our home base then was the Panamá Canal Yacht Club.
I have vivid memories of three days when I fell in love with Panamá and with the idea that triathlon and Panamá were meant for each other.
The first memory is when we approached the yacht club at Cristobal, Colòn after we had transited the canal. Behind the yachts tall coconut trees were bending in the tropical breeze. The temperature and humidity felt like Hawai’i. My body felt at home on the Atlantic side of Panamá. I want to stay here, I said to John. I wondered then if my body remembered that I had lived near there as a small child. My father was stationed at the Submarine Base at Coco Solo.
The second memory was when we first dropped anchor in Linton Bay in Portobelo National Park. We had sailed there to attend a wedding. When we jumped off the boat to swim in clean water we could see coral and fish. When we went ashore there were hard-packed country roads perfect for bicycling and jogging and walking. There were coastal hills and mountains for hiking and old forts to explore.
My first thought was that I would like to anchor “Primo” here to train to do Ironman Kona. John had completed the first Ironman in 1978 in which I was a last minute DNS (Did Not Start). Our son Michael was an Ironman Finisher in 1979, at age 16. Our daughter Kristin had been the first in the family to be an Ironman Finisher at Kona, in 1988. I had yet to do an Ironman. Portobelo National Park was the place for me to start training again.
The third picture in my mind is the view from the top of a Panamanian mountain that overlooks the valley of Nuevo Tonosi on the Atlantic side of Panama. We had climbed there with a Panamanian who owned property there and kept free range horses and chickens at the top of that mountain. It was a glorious hike. What a place. I felt such affection for Panamá. At the top we could see the Atlantic coastline and most of the National Park lands.
We mapped out a course for a triathlon in Portobelo National Park. Our hiking friend (Manny Berastengui, Engineer for Portobelo) helped us with the plan. Manny talked to local landowners. We needed permission to run through their properties on the run leg of the triathlon.
Soon after the mountain hike we bought hilltop property in Juan Gallego. We had a view of nearby Isla Grande, the northernmost point of Panama. One day I swam the distance between Puerto Lindo, near where Primo was at anchor and
the Christ statue on the reef at Isla Grande.
On the nautical chart it was 2.4 miles, the swim distance for the Ironman. These tropical waters were where Columbus had anchored on his Fourth Voyage. This coast seemed a wonderful setting for a tropical triathlon.
I pictured our Juan Gallego property as a training campsite for Kona, for us and for others. Also, it would be nice to have a little house there. We would have a place to return to in Panamá if we should sail Primo elsewhere. For now our home was on our anchored boat in nearby Linton Bay.
The Caribbean coast was brimming with history and forts and stories and animal life. We wanted to show it off. We had been to many triathlon sites. This geography was some of the best we had seen anywhere for triathletes.
We laid out a tropical triathlon course to help us to train for the 20th Anniversary Ironman in Kona, Hawai’i. We had wanted to give a boost to the sport of triathlon in Panamá. The country of Panamá had never been represented on the roster of athletes at the Ironman World Championships at Kona. Where we lived on the Atlantic side of Panamá was an area rich in history and wildlife and tropical beauty. We wanted Panamanians and international visitors to have a reason to travel there.
We knew from our Ironman experience that a popular international triathlon could boost the economy of a region. We talked about the potential tourism benefits of triathlon with friends and neighbors on the coast. We mapped out a challenging one-way course that would start at Isla Grande and end past the city of Portobelo in Buenaventura. The Spanish Main Triathlon would take place within the boundaries of the Portobelo National Park.
We talked up our Costa Arriba Triathlon to the runners, bicyclists and swimmers we met. We entered a sprint triathlon at a U. S. Army base in Panamá. Some of the athletes were Panamanians. Several were U. S. military who had done triathlons elsewhere. We wanted all of them to be in our off-road triathlon on the coast.
“D Day,” 6 June 1998, was the date for our first triathlon. The check-in and swim finish was below our new property at Juan Gallego. We hired local Pangas to carry the swimmers to the start on the white beach at Isla Grande. What a sight to see the entrants show up with their bright bicycles, ready to go, lycra-clad, serious, enthusiastic.
The course details of that year and the next two were colorful and changing. What we gained that day were some volunteers who became excited about supporting our triathlon there. There were Allens, Baitels, Manny Berastengui, Melissa Ravenal, Gae Speed and the Karate kids and neighbor land owners at the swim finish.
Our Juan Gallego neighbors not only helped at the check-in site next to their house but arranged our first email account. They set it up for us and chose the name. They told us the name of our email account on D-Day morning, before the start of our triathlon.
We have used that email account name since then. The memory reminds us of how we communicated then. There were no cell phones for us to use there in 1998, public pay telephones were not reliable, our internet access was through internet cafes, we rode on unpaved roads for most of the bike course, the GPS modes we used to mark the course wiggled an inexact location. That was for military security reasons.
John and I had mapped out a 5 year plan for triathlon in the District of Portobelo. It included plans for an Ironman distance race. We expected to continue to be in charge of the events we planned for the coast. We would hire a Race Director for the Portobelo race. We intended to take part in all the triathlons that we put on. The events would be training incentives for us.
We had had the very same plans when we launched the Iron Man Triathlon in Honolulu in 1978. We intended to put on and be in the triathlon each year. In each case triathlon took off faster than we had imagined. The triathletes made it happen.
By and by others put on the triathlon. We did not keep with our plan to enter the events each year in either place.
We set up a local, Costa Arriba, Board of Directors for the Portobelo triathlon. We modeled it on the IM volunteer staff in Kona.
In a very short time the sport of triathlon became popular in Panamá. There were already events for bicyclists and runners in the country and swimmers too. A triathlon organization was formed in Panamá. A triathlon began on the Pacific side, in Coronado (!), Panamá. A program of triathlons for kids was started. The sport took off under the auspices of a new organization, the Union de Triathlon de Panamá, the UTP.
Our farewell contribution to triathlon in Panamá was to help to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the visit of Christopher Columbus. Cristobal Colon’s fourth voyage to the New World was in 1502. The “Union de Triathlon de Panamá and Los Triathletas Panameños” marked the occasion with Triathlon Cristobal Colón (1502-2002)…”al celebrar los 500 anos de la visita de Cristobal Colón a nuestras costas.”
In 2012 the Panamanian Department of Tourism promoted a new Ironman event, “Ironman 70.3 Panama.” Back in 1998 we had contacted the Panamanian Department of Tourism to interest them in triathlon in Panamá. We said promotion would attract athlete tourist visitors. There was no interest. We had done the same thing in Hawai’i in 1978 and 1979 with the same result. No interest.
February 12, 2012 was a special day for sports tourism in the country. It was another milestone for triathlon in Panamá. Best of all many of the Panamanian entrants in “Ironman 70.3 Panamá” were men and women who were Ironman Finishers already. They were veteran participants in the world of international triathlon and in the Ironman Championship in Kona, Hawai’i.
For more information about triathlon events in Panamá…
(and Ironman 70.3 Panama [2/25/2024], see Unión de Triatlón de Panama, (@triathloonpanama) [email protected], Triatlón Portobelo Extremo [in late April each year]