Welch’s Speedy Recovery Leads to Triathlon Victory

Three weeks ago Greg Welch was in Phoenix with fellow Australian Simon Skillicorn. The two were preparing for a triathlon, eyeing the course a day before the race when the car they were parked in was broadsided by another car being driven at 50 m.p.h.

Skillicorn suffered a broken neck. Welch came away with two cracked ribs and two more separated from the spine.

No, they didn’t run the next day. Skillicorn won’t be running for quite some time and on Friday when doctors looked at Welch’s X-rays, they advised him not to even train.

But there was Welch, all smiles, no indication of fatigue and giving the thumbs-up sign in the middle of the 10-kilometer run along Harbor Drive, the last event in Sunday’s Mountain Dew Sport San Diego International Triathlon.

Sure, doctors said don’t train, but they didn’t bar him from competing. So Welch competed.

At that midway point in the 10K, Welch had a 30-second lead over Miles Stewart, also from Australia, and Scott Molina of Boulder, Colo. It was more than apparent he was going to win the race, which also consisted of a one-kilometer swim and 30 kilometers on bike. Welch, 25, did so in a course record of 1:27:27.

Scott Tinley’s old record was 1:27:42.

“That was for Simon,” Welch said after the victory. “I did it all for him.”

Welch was not the only one to set a course record and then proceed to tell a story about how quickly the human body can mend itself. Paula Newby-Fraser’s story is not so dramatic.

By finishing in 1:34:56, Newby-Fraser, a Zimbabwe transplant who now lives in Encinitas, eclipsed her own course record of 1:37:16.

As it was for Welch, this was a surprise considering Newby-Fraser spent the previous six days recovering from the Nice Triathlon, which she won just a week ago.

And recover is the applicable word. It took Newby-Fraser 6 1/2 hours to finish the Nice event, which consisted of four kilometers in water, 75 miles on bike and 20 miles on foot.

By winning in France, Newby-Fraser cashed a $12,000 check. For winning in San Diego, she earned $1,500, as did Welch. The second-place finishers, Stewart (1:27:55) and Erin Baker (1:37:53), got $1,000 and the third-place finishers, Scott Molina (1:28:04) and Joan Alley (1:41:15), picked up $750.