After a grueling 16 hours, 80-year-old George Hulse crossed the finish line of a full Ironman race, proving anything is possible.
Anyone who knows what an Ironman triathlon is will know that finishing one is by no means an easy feat. With a 3.9-kilometer swim, a 180-kilometer bike, and a 42-kilometer run to cover before reaching the finish line, these races are not for the faint of heart.
But, George Hulse has proven that anyone can overcome the challenge.
George is an 80-year-old triathlete who just conquered one of the toughest endurance events in the world when he crossed the finish line of the Ironman Asia-Pacific race as the oldest competitor.
How long did it take him?
George Hulse spent an hour and 30 minutes finishing the 3.9-kilometer swim. After a 16-minute transition, he finished the grueling 180-kilometer bike in seven hours and 47 minutes — nearly an entire workday of the average employee — cycling out to Port Douglas and back to Cairns.
Close to ten hours of physical exertion down, and George Hulse still had the distance of a full marathon to cover after taking an 11-minute break between the bike and run.
The 80-year-old triathlete ran the marathon for six hours and 38 minutes.
Approaching the finish line, he was over eight hours behind the course champions, Braden Currie and Kylie Simpson. But even so, fans stuck around to witness George’s triumph after finishing the 226-kilometer race in 16 hours, 24 minutes, and 39 seconds.
Watch how the celebrations unfolded as he crossed the line:
Fellow racers, event organizers, and spectators were in awe to watch this 80-year-old push the limits of what we know is physically possible, finishing a full Ironman, one of the toughest endurance sporting events in the world.
So if you’ve ever seen your friends training and competing for long-distance triathlon races and thought to yourself, ‘I could never do that,’ George Hulse may have just proven you wrong.
Banner image from Ironman Oceania on Instagram.
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