East London Triathletes was formed by a few like-minded individuals, namely Pete Eldridge and Alex Hunter. In 1984 Pete was the superintendant at the East Ham swimming pool and a keen athlete and good friends of Roger Mills who was also based in the same area and had an athletic shop called East London Road Runners.

Pete had seen the media coverage of the Hawaii Ironman that was leaking over to the UK and thought it would be great to replicate a similar event here in UK. One day, a few members of the road runners club, including Pete, had a swim, then went down to the Eastway cycle track and did a few laps then went for a run. From here, the seeds were sown.

The year was still 1984 and after a few discusions and scouting missions came the original London Triathlon. Pete and a few others put together an event in which the competitors swam 1500meters in the dock with no wetsuits, cycled about 48kilometers and ran for about 11kilometers. Over 400 people took part and the winner was Glen Cook.

In 1985 Pete and the others got together at East Ham Leisure Centre and from here decided to form East London Triathletes. The original core of members was only 20 maximum but it soon grew to about 100 and contines to grow to this day. The original members set the pace by racing all over the country, a tradition that has been upheld, and we have even spread our wings further afield by racing in Australia to Germany and Malaysia to Ireland. East London Triathletes now has over 160 members.

One day in the late 1980's, the club members were on a swim training session at East Ham pool when they were greeted by a BTA official who was passing through with a special athlete who was over from the US to talk at a seminar. This guy wanted a quick swim, Pete says his face looked familiar and as they were about to enter the pool it dawned on him that it was Hawaii Ironman legend Dave Scott. Apparently he very humbly swam the back of the lane!