Vale Digger Elrick

[Freak 53]

Sadly a Triathlon legend and all round great guy Digger Elrick passed away peacefully today with his family by his side.  Its a sad loss for the Victorian triathlon community and he certainly helped myself alot as a junior and continued to be involved in the sport as much as he could after his accident many, many years ago. 

Digger was a founding member of Mornington Peninsula Triathlon Club, a State and National champion and a loveable larikin.

A fighter to the end.  Rest in peace Dig.

Edited October 27 by Freak

[Nick777 244]

46 minutes ago, Freak said:

Sadly a Triathlon legend and all round great guy Digger Elrick passed away peacefully today with his family by his side.  Its a sad loss for the Victorian triathlon community and he certainly helped myself alot as a junior and continued to be involved in the sport as much as he could after his accident many, many years ago. 

Digger was a founding member of Mornington Peninsula Triathlon Club, a State and National champion and a loveable larikin.

A fighter to the end.  Rest in peace Dig.

Never met him, but the name is legendary. RIP.

[Chuckie M 337]

I came home from shift yesterday to the terrible new.s He had been in hospital for a couple of weeks following a suspected stroke. Rest in peace good buddy. I am so glad our lives crossed paths..

[hippityhoppity 7]

Terribly sad news

I’ve not posted on here in something like 10 years as I don’t live in Aust any more but I still lurk to see how things still exist 

Digger was one of my fav blokes. Just a character, loved bike stuff as much as riding really fast ( which he could do better than most ).

I’m pretty sure I’ve not met a bloke that could tell a joke better either. 

Digger was born into triathlon royalty in Frankston as his dad was a central figure there... he competed at IMH as an 18 year old too ( pretty sure he had to lie about age just to compete? )... not too sure how many ppl can boast doing IMH that young. 10:50 and change in the same year as the great Allen/Scott iron war .

( http://www.bede-kraut.at/media/ergebnisliste-ironman-hawaii-1989-2.pdf)

Went up to Forster with his young family  in 1999 . At that point Digger had not competed in a few years but he had a renewed fire to get going again. 

A beautiful young daughter , loving wife and new job meant he would be relatively time poor ...

We agreed to get some training done when we could. Stay nights where it suited in Melb. He was working in Melb CBD and would aim to commute on the bike when he could to and from Frankston

The plan unravelled due to a terrible incident involving a tram. Visiting him in hospital for the next few weeks was terribly difficult as he slowly recovered in ICU.

As a measure of his friends, back in the day ( before social media was even a thing) an email group called Triathlon Digest ran ( organised by an American journalist)  and via that I received dozens of requests enquiring to his well-being and msgs of love and support and anecdotes of his antics over the years. 

I still recall collecting the crumpled wreckage of his bike from the tram depot in Hawthorn where it ended up. It sat in my garage for months as I couldn’t bring myself to deal with it.

Naturally time progresses ... and people drift apart . I regret not keeping in touch more often as time went on.

I’ll miss Digger , he will always remind me of what was so good about triathlon and meeting its loveable characters. 

 

 

 

 

 

[Chuckie M 337]

There will be a few racing the HB100 and drinking in his honor on Sunday. This race would have been perfect for him in his younger days. His Dad was well up in the Ansett corporate ladder. Digger used to have 10 return flights a year as part of the deal. 😪