ECKSTEIN FAREWELL
GREATEST IRONMAN SET TO EXIT
STROKE by stroke for more than half his life, Shannon Eckstein has doggedly overtaken the greats of Australian ironman, leaving a stream of broken records in his wake.
Now, as he enters the final leg of one of the greatest endurance feats in Australian sporting history – 19 straight years of elite racing – he is almost ready to put the feet up and reflect on a career that spanned across three great eras of surf lifesaving and saw him take two vastly different views from the top of his world.
Eckstein, 36, will pull on a rashie as a professional for the final time at Sydney’s Wanda beach today in the season’s final Nutri-Grain event, a series he has won an unprecedented nine times.
And like all ironmen there are other legs to train for, namely the Queensland and Australian titles, so any rivals assuming it is party time can think again.
“It is a farewell tour, it seems,” the Northcliffe star said.
“I have been professional for more than half my life. I have been travelling around racing in these circuits, so this weekend will probably just be a celebration of that.”
In 2003, Eckstein had the world at his feet when he claimed the Nutri-Grain series, Australian titles and world titles.
When he again claimed surf lifesaving’s holy trinity in 2016, it was with two kids playing at his feet.
“For me to do that at 19 was amazing, but then to do the same thing in 2016, I was married, I had kids – it was different,’’ he said.
“It was very rewarding to have other things in life and still succeed.’’
In between he raced, and beat, some of the sport’s biggest names, including Darren Mercer, Ky Hurst, Zane Holmes and in recent times Matt Poole, Ali Day and his brother Caine Eckstein.
Despite sometimes giving away serious centimetres and kilograms to his rivals, along the way he earned universal acclaim as the greatest ironman of all time.
“I think I have worked really hard and got everything out of my body I can,’’ he said.
“I am not Trevor Hendy and built like a man mountain, I have worked out ways to win races.
“Whenever people say I am the greatest, it doesn’t matter to me, but I have won more races than anyone and that’s what we go out there for, so I am proud of that.’’
The 36-year-old father of two described Hurst as the best swimmer he had seen, his brother Caine an “animal trainee”, and Poole as a fierce competitor.
But Holmes was his toughest opponent.
“He was a freak,’’ he said. “Sometimes you have opponents and you know they have one area where they are not as strong and you think that’s your opportunity to exploit, but Zane was the toughest because he was so good at everything.’’