DAY LEADS APPLAUSE AS ERA SET TO FINISH

COOLANGATTA Gold champion Ali Day says the prospect of ironman racing without Shannon Eckstein is “bizarre” and he will be sad to lose the man he has chased for the best part of a decade.

Day is one of the few athletes able to say they have taken it to the man widely regarded as the greatest ironman of all time, beating him by a point to win the 2014-15 Nutri-Grain series.

Day became the first man in a decade other than Eckstein, Zane Holmes or Caine Eckstein to win the series with his victory four years ago and has been anointed favourite again this summer after claiming a sixth Coolangatta Gold on Sunday.

And he will miss racing the man who has helped spur him on when Eckstein completes his final professional ironman race this summer.

“I’ve only ever known racing Shannon. I looked up to him for so many years and then I raced him and started actually competing with him and beating him, so it’s going to be really bizarre,” Day said.

With his focus on the Nutri-Grain series, which starts at Queenscliff in less than a fortnight, and the world titles in Adelaide next month, Eckstein bypassed the Coolangatta Gold to ensure he would be at his best for a packed season.

“I know he’ll want to go out on a winning note and it’d be nice for him to go out like that whether that be at Aussies or in the series,” Day said.

“He looks like he’s in good form and he’s not the greatest of all time for no reason.

“He’ll be putting his best foot forward and I just hope that he gets to finish his career off in a way that he would like to finish it off. But he has nothing to prove – to me, to anyone in the sport, or even to himself.

“I think he’s just doing it for the love of it now and I would never write him off. He’s the favourite.”