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Taylor Wins Grand Slam...

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by Kara Deschenes (ironman.com)


Triathlon wasn’t Gregory Taylor’s first love, but it ended up being one of his most enduring. Having begun the sport as a side effect of off-season training for Nordic ski racing and biathlon (skiing and shooting), he entered a race deemed "The World’s Toughest Triathlon" at the urging of a friend in 1989. After swimming two miles in Lake Tahoe, cycling 100 miles in the Sierra Mountains, and running 18 miles on backcountry trails, Taylor finished the race in tenth place. With two IRONMAN World Championship slots rolling down as far as the seventh place athlete, he narrowly missed the chance to score a spot and left the race satisfied with his accomplishment....


Three days later the race director called to offer one of the two slots to Taylor after the seventh-place athlete pulled out and the eighth and ninth place competitors declined. He took the slot, but didn’t realize the impact of that moment would have on his life.
Taylor, now 60, raced his first IRONMAN World Championship event in 1990. His rookie showing resulted in a sixth place finish for the 35-39 age group. "Only a handful of seconds from fifth and the podium with little real IRONMAN training and I was hooked!" Taylor said. It was after this race that Taylor began living the life of an IRONMAN athlete.
His 40s brought big accomplishments in Kona terms, including finishing in 32nd place overall at the age of 41 and holding the 40-44 year old age group record for six years. Stepping into a podium spot a dozen times throughout his reign at IRONMAN World Championship races, the aging triathlete has struggled in recent years to come to terms with a harsh reality: "Despite my best efforts, increasing age brought with it decreasing speed," he summarized. He no longer wanted to focus on overall finish place, rather turned to scoring age-group titles. So as he planned his 2014 season, he laid his sights on becoming a grand-slam champion by focusing on age group titles at the IRONMAN World Championship, IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship and USAT National Championship races. READ MORE

 

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