On the recent IM Talk podcast episode, Bevan and John started a discussion about how old athletes are when they win IM Hawaii. John gave me my next research project …
So, here is the data:
The female winners ages are the red squares, the male winners are blue dots.
I’ve highlighted some notable athletes:
- Sylviane Puntous is the youngest winner (age 22 in 1983).
- The youngest male winner was Scott Tinley in 1982 (age 25 in 1982).
- Dave Scott’s first win came at the age of 26 (in 1980). Thomas Hellriegel was also 26 when he won in 1997.
- Mark Allen’s six wins also stand out.
- Paula Newby-Fraser’s 8 wins occurred over a span of 10 years (1986 to 1996).
- Natascha Badmann took 6 wins over 7 years, her reign was broken twice by Lori Bowden.
- The progression of the recent men’s winners looks like another dynasty, in fact it’s three different athletes (Stadler, McCormack and Alexander) that are almost the same age. Crowie is also the oldest male winner (38 in 2011) – so is it time for the younger generation?
- The youngest recent winners were Faris Al-Sultan (27 in 2005) and Mirinda Carefrae (29 in 2010).
I couldn’t find the exact birth dates of some of the earlier winners, so if you can help me out, please let me know. Specifically I have no information on Robin Beck, Linda Sweeney and Kathleen McCartney, and only rough information on Gordon Haller, Tom Warren and Joanne Ernst.