The Halo Effect

When Ironman world record holder TIM DON suffered a catastrophic neck injury last year, everyone assumed his triathlon career was over. Everyone, that is, but Don.

- Steve Mazzucchi

A top-flight athlete who breaks his damn neck at 39 and insists he can reign again has gotta have a screw loose, right? Hold that thought, because this comeback chronicle is one of a kind. Last October, Ironman star

Tim Don was en fuego. Fresh off a world-record-setting South American Championship performance in ​Brazil—where he completed the 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike, and 26.22-mile run in 7:40:23—the London-born, Colorado-residing three-time Olympian hit Kona, HI, with eyes on “the holy grail,” the World Championship.

Then, on a training ride two days before the race, Don got T-boned by a car and suffered a hangman’s fracture. In one heart/neck-breaking moment, all seemed lost.

“A week or so later, when I was in excruciating pain with screws in my skull,” Don recalls, “I couldn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel.” See, without hesitation, he’d chosen the most grueling recovery route, which also offered the best chance to compete again: three months with his neck immobilized in a halo brace, secured by, yes, skull screws.