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September 2015

A Silk Purse: How a Long, Tall, Blonde Quite Accidentally Invented Modern Endurance Sports

PART 2 of TWO INSTALLMENTS
Sunday, September 14, 2025

Valerie Silk, addressing the Ironman award ceremony (circa 1985) 

In part 1, Silk discussed how she acquired the Ironman, why and how she moved it Kona from Oahu, and the early parts of taking the race commercial. Her tale of the Feb. 1982 event where she missed the Julie Moss/Kathleen McCartney episode is the stuff of legend.

In part 2, Valerie offers additional thoughts on those seminal years, her sale to Dr. James Gills of Florida, the current sale-in-works to the Chinese multinational corporation, Dalian Wanda, and her own forgotten legacy within triathlon.