By John Woodford
When PhD candidate Fan Zhang entered the 19th Gatorade Ironman Triathlon World Championship in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii this October, he said his goal was just to finish "and set a precedent for one billion Chinese."
Zhang was not only the sole triathlete from the University of Michigan in this year's contest but also of his homeland. "The sport of triathlon is virtually nonexistent in China," he says, "due to the lack of training facilities and top-notch bikes, plus the roads are always congested," says Zhang, who was a collegiate track star in Beijing before coming to the United States to attend Auburn University.
A month after successfully setting his precedent, Zhang and a dozen or so fellow students from the College of Pharmacy gathered for a potluck during the taped television program covering the event. All kept their eyes peeled for a possible glimpse of Zhang.
Just three days earlier, he had defended his doctoral dissertation on the performance of two cholesterol-lowering drugs called bile acid sequestrants. "Because of it efficacy problems, large doses of the drugs are needed to be effective," Zhang says. "So patient compliance is really poor and may lead to therapeutic failure. We try to single out the reason behind this and suggest strategy for improvements that would make the therapy more effective and less costly."
As for his own cholesterol level, training for a 2.4- mile ocean swim, followed by a 112-mile bicycle race and then a 26.2-mile marathon run---all to be completed within 17 hours---takes care of that. On weekdays he swims or runs at lunchtime and tops off the day with a two-hour bike ride; the weekend regimen is more than double that.
At the potluck with his fellow students, who joined faculty in raising $540 toward his travel expenses, Zhang described some of the high points of the competition for him while the screen showed top Ironmen and Ironwomen experiencing the gamut of sensations from the proverbial thrill of victory to the multiform agonies of defeat.
As the camera closed in on the ultimate winner of the men's competition, Zhang told his fellow viewers to watch carefully because this was a point where he, himself, might appear on camera on his second-hand, 21-pound bike.
"I passed him right along here," Zhang said with a big grin. "It made me feel very happy to pass the leader." After a pause, he added, "Even though I was still on my bike at the time, finishing the second segment and he was completing the run, it still made me feel happy. And it also thrilled me to realize that I was competing with the elite triathletes from all over the world."
Any source of good cheer is welcome to triathletes on the move. For many contestants, even success was agonizing, Zhang affirmed, as the TV program devoted considerable time to the misfortune of a top woman contestant. Leading her field and only a few dozen yards from victory, she collapsed for several minutes, finally rising to stagger the last painful and delirious yards across the finish line.
The men's winner finished in 8:20:34; the top woman in 9:16:46; and Zhang beat about half the field of 1,500 from 52 countries with his time of 12:14:48.
Although he did not become ill or experience great pain, Zhang said he was drained of energy throughout the day following the event. Now he's training for the 100th Boston Marathon this April and plans to compete in the 1996 Ironman competition as well.
But before taking that plunge, Zhang will first enter a contest with vastly more participants---the rat race. He is joining the Parke-Davis pharmaceutical research labs in January as a post-doctoral fellow, where he'll work on the regimen for developing new drugs.
. . . December 1995