Ironman Triathlon Breaks Internet Records

The Ironman Triathlon became the more watched single-day Internet sporting event via streamed media, beating baseball, football and other events. More than 1.5 Million To Log Onto Ironmanlive.com during the Championship Weekend.

From 2003 Ironman Champion Peter Reid’s triumphant win to Peggy McDowell-Cramer’s finish just minutes before the cut-off time, computer technology tracked each triathlete’s progress every step of the way.

More than 1,600 athletes from nearly 50 countries competed in the 25th Ironman Triathlon World Championship in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii. And more than 1.5 million people logged onto Ironmanlive.com’s Dell(tm) servers during the Oct. 18 race weekend, making the event the largest single-day sporting event to be streamed over the Internet.

“Ironmanlive.com is breaking new ground for delivering television-quality coverage over the Internet,” said Sean Gallagher, director of development, Discovery Channel. “The production value of Ironman’s online coverage rivals the best broadcast media outlets. Ironmanlive.com is the future of endurance sports broadcasting.”

Event organizers were outfitted with Dell handheld computers, workstations and servers to feed the information through Ironmanlive.com, the only outlet that broadcasted the event. Dell’s technology helped the Ironmanlive.com’s technical team load the Web site with split times, streaming video and still photos of the athletes on their journey from the shores of Kailua Bay to the breathtaking finish on Ali’i Drive.

More than 6.7 terabytes of data were streamed on the Web site as athletes completed the 2.4-mile ocean swim, 112-mile bike and 26.2-mile run during race day.

Technology deployed during the Ironman event included:

 back to top