If he had have been alive, "Pring'' would have joined the group after tasting the waves at The Alley first, and in between being chatted up by a pretty beach girl or two.

It seemed everyone at the wake, outside North Cronulla Surf Life Saving Club, for one of Cronulla's best-known sportsmen, had a story or three about this blond-haired rival to David Hasselhoff, of Baywatch television fame.

Anyone who dies at 49 dies too young. Yet it seemed the "godfather'' of the sport of triathlon in this country crammed in 80 years.

Champion swimmer, champion board rider, champion lifeguard, champion triathlete and champion sporting director. Oh, and he had his faults, as his proud dad Bob, brother Shaughan and friends explained. But they were quickly forgotten, as he moved through life with

a grin and smile for most in life.

"He was my brother, from another mother,'' lifelong friend and policeman, Tony Unicomb, repeated the saying they had for each other.

Fellow lifeguard Jeff Williams worked beside him for more than a decade, on and off the beach. He keeps some secrets, he told a few then like Tony, he wept as he said goodbye.

While police in Abu Dhabi still try to work out the circumstances of Mark Pringle's bike accident, leading to his death last week in hospital, several hundred sporting identities, friends and family were happy to farewell their "champion''.

Like former Australian and world champion triathlete, Brad Beven and fellow former triathlon champions, Marc Dragon, Wayne "Chipmunk'' Fraser and Tim A'hern, they won't easily forget the grin of "Pring''.

Click on the comment link below to leave a tribute to Mark Pringle.