Ode to Joy
Submitted by: Timothy Carlson
Added: Thu Apr 23 2009
Second in a series of finish line photographs by Timothy Carlson. The thrill of victory comes in many flavors and goes not only to the triathlete who crosses the line first.
It can be an answered prayer, a cessation of torture, an embrace or an unambiguous exultation for which only Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony Hallelujah chorus can do justice. With all due respect to Leo Tolstoy, his opening lines of Anna Karenina – “Every happy family is the same, but unhappy families are all different” – do not cover the range of joyful expression at triathlon’s finish lines. For Welchy and his heir to triumphant Aussie air, Robbo, their exuberant leaps offer a robust, balletic denial of Pheidippedes’ fate. For Sian Welch, Barb Lindquist and the kneeling Brazilian, the first impulse was to give thanks. For the blond Aussie tiger, the finish banner was a tasty eland on the veldt. For Peter Reid and Lori Bowden, that winning moment was pure passion. For Belinda Granger, a well done day on the Queen K merited hoisting a merry inflatable Roo over head at the finish. For the tall, strong, swift and enduring dad at Ironman Wisconsin, the finish line faint and tumble offered a story his three children can tell on him for the next 50 years. Modern mud men and mud women can share primitive joy, an elite German athlete can feel the joy of flight, and an otherwise deskbound scribbler can feel like Muhammad Ali at the end of the Thrilla in Manila thanks to a little Ironman jaunt on the wild side.
It can be an answered prayer, a cessation of torture, an embrace or an unambiguous exultation for which only Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony Hallelujah chorus can do justice. With all due respect to Leo Tolstoy, his opening lines of Anna Karenina – “Every happy family is the same, but unhappy families are all different” – do not cover the range of joyful expression at triathlon’s finish lines. For Welchy and his heir to triumphant Aussie air, Robbo, their exuberant leaps offer a robust, balletic denial of Pheidippedes’ fate. For Sian Welch, Barb Lindquist and the kneeling Brazilian, the first impulse was to give thanks. For the blond Aussie tiger, the finish banner was a tasty eland on the veldt. For Peter Reid and Lori Bowden, that winning moment was pure passion. For Belinda Granger, a well done day on the Queen K merited hoisting a merry inflatable Roo over head at the finish. For the tall, strong, swift and enduring dad at Ironman Wisconsin, the finish line faint and tumble offered a story his three children can tell on him for the next 50 years. Modern mud men and mud women can share primitive joy, an elite German athlete can feel the joy of flight, and an otherwise deskbound scribbler can feel like Muhammad Ali at the end of the Thrilla in Manila thanks to a little Ironman jaunt on the wild side.
