THERE WAS ONLY ONE ‘DEANO’

FROM Austinmer and Thirroul to Maroochydore and Mooloolaba and finally to Northcliffe and Kurrawa, there was only one Deano.

Dean Mercer was the youngest of two Ironman superstar brothers that helped put Ironman racing on the Australian sporting map.

Older brother Darren, the quiet achiever, little brother Dean like every little brother, annoying and cheeky – a loveable little rogue – but as passionate about racing as anyone I’ve ever met.

It didn’t take long for the surf lifesaving fraternity to sit up and take notice of the Mercer boys, who at 13 had made their mark as the best Juniors to come out of the Illawarra.

It was the height of the cereal wars in the 80s that saw Dean and Darren on the Kellogg’s side of the ledger and Guy Leech, Grant Kenny and Trevor Hendy on the Uncle Tobys side.

And the Mercer boys would not take a backward step as ironman racing became back page and front page news.

Then in 1989 at Burleigh Heads, in a cyclone surf, one little bloke from Thirroul in NSW broke Trevor Hendy’s stranglehold on the Australian ironman crown.

That dogged, never-say-die attitude saw little Deano come from behind and unseat the king, who had won the two previous titles and went on to win four of the next five.

But the tenacity that was Deano wasn’t going away, beating Hendy to the line in a frantic finish at Kurrawa with big brother Darren third in 1995 before he too won the first of his two Aussies crowns.

It was a classic Deano fight to the finish. The little bloke again punching well above his weight living up to the legendary Mark Twain saying: “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, but very much the size of the fight in the dog.”

We’ll miss ya Deano. But we’ll never forget you.