David Priestley Image Gallery

Founding editor of Australasian Cycling and freelance journalist, Victorian-based David Priestley was quick to recognize the marketing benefits of including triathlon news in his newspaper style publication. The re-named periodical Australasian Cycling and Triathlon News ran for approximately a decade from 1982/83 to 1992/1993. Priestley sold it in 1991 but continued to write and produce photographic images for the paper until it folded a year or so later. In the process Priestley amassed a large collection of photographic images – most taken by himself – that document the rapid evolution of triathlon from a chaotic and dangerous challenge for multisport extremists to an organized, commercialized Olympic sport. While Priestley labeled most photographs in the collection, the information is often incomplete or inaccurate. Many early photographs reflect Priestley’s Victorian background, featuring athletes and events in that state.

The items in this dataset are made available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence.