Will tJ tollakson's life by the sword eventually - Stephanie Pearson

ich cruseThe effort earned him Inside Triathlon and Triathlete magazines’amateur triathlete of the year award.In 2005 Tollakson turned pro. The debut coincided with a spectacularcrash: During a training ride on the criterium course in ChulaVista, Calif., in March, Tollakson fractured his clavicle. He continuedto train with the U.S. Olympic triathlon team anyway.“When I got there, T.J. had already broken his collarbone andI thought, ‘This guy thinks he is all that,’” says Friman. “Then wespent a day with the Navy SEAL(s). T.J. couldn’t even move his rightarm, and he’s trying to keep up with a Navy SEAL(s) program. Hemight have been a little cocky at first, but he was backing it up withhard work.” That summer, at his first half-Ironman at Buffalo SpringsLake Triathlon in Texas, Tollakson finished second to Marcel Vifian.Then he placed ninth at Ironman 70.3 UK.In 2006 Tollakson finished fifth at Ironman 70.3 California inOceanside, fifth at Vineman 70.3, and then he injured his back in August,which led to a DNF at Ironman Malaysia in February 2007. ThatMay he took sixth at Florida Ironman 70.3 and finally claimed his firstmajor title at Eagleman Ironman 70.3 in June, beating the secondplacefinisher, Australia’s Richie Cunningham, by six minutes. His bikesplit was 2:02, the course record. Tollakson followed it up in Augustwith a third-place finish at Ironman Louisville after leading the racefor seven hours. The performance made him a shoo-in for the worldchampionship. Seven weeks later in Kona, he placed 30th.In 2008, Tollakson started the season with a crushing secondplacefinish at Ironman Arizona, losing to Hungarian Jozsef Major by18 seconds. The race qualified him for Kona, but the rest of Tollakson’syear slipped away with a series of DNFs and south-of-the-top-1040. insidetriathlon