USA Triathlon is heartbroken to learn of the passing of Dick Hoyt. Hoyt was an endurance sports icon, a Boston Marathon and Kona legend and a USA Triathlon Hall of Famer. More importantly, he was a tremendous father and a beloved member of our community.

The push-assist duo of Dick and Rick Hoyt has inspired athletes all over the world — showing us what’s truly possible with hard work, dedication and teamwork. Dick’s legacy will last forever through the lives he’s helped change and the barriers he’s helped break. Our thoughts and deepest condolences go out to his family. May he rest in peace.

Over three decades, Dick and Rick Hoyt paved the way for the countless push-assist teams around the world who participate in endurance sports today.

In January of 2020, Dick and Rick were inducted into the USA Triathlon Hall of Fame, becoming the first push-assist team to be inducted, and Rick the first inductee with a disability. For decades, the father-son team completed triathlons, marathons and other endurance events together. Rick Hoyt was born with cerebral palsy and quadriplegia. The duo started racing in 1985, when Rick was a teenager, and completed more than 1,000 endurance events together.

“Team Hoyt” became the first duo ever to complete the IRONMAN World Championship in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, in 1989, and repeated the feat in 1999.

“This is what we did together, as a father and son. Rick is such a great kid. He’s just like you and me, he lives on his own. He’s just a great kid and now we’ve got all these Team Hoyt organizations in different states. That is something I’m very proud of,” Dick Hoyt said in January 2020 at the USA Triathlon Hall of Fame induction ceremony in Tempe, Arizona.

Fellow USA Triathlon Hall of Fame member and longtime Boston Marathon race director Dave McGillvray introduced Team Hoyt at the ceremony, telling the story of how he met the famous push-assist team at the Boston Marathon — the iconic race the duo would go on to run 37 times.

“I looked upon them with bewilderment. What is this? Someone is actually pushing another person in a wheelchair? I’d never seen that before. I waited for them at the finish line as I just had to find out who they were and what this was all about. That began a 40-year relationship and friendship between us,” McGillivray said. “I asked Dick if he wanted to do my Bay State Triathlon. He said, ‘Not without Rick.’ I thought, ‘how is he going to do this?’ As we all know, the rest is history. They did it and never looked back.”

USA Triathlon Hall of Fame Member Dick Hoyt Passes Away

Loading...