On October 11, 2025, the Ironman World Triathlon championship took place in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii. More than 1600 athletes are competing in this event, and among them is 80-year-old Natalie Grabow, who finished it and set the record for the oldest person in the world to finish a triathlon.

A triathlon includes a 3.8-kilometer swim, then a 180-kilometer bike, and finally a 42-kilometer run. This means open water swimming, a full marathon, and a biking competition. It is even really tough for young people, and most of them won’t even be able to finish any one of these events.

But age didn’t restrict Natalie. She finished the triathlon in 16 hours and 45 minutes. This is probably because she’s been athletic for a long time, according to newsforkids.net. When she was growing up, girls were mostly seen as cheerleaders instead of athletes. Then, when her kids were young, she started learning and playing tennis. Soon, she switched to running after she switched her job to a software engineer.

Soon, her running buddies started doing triathlons, and she wanted to join in, too. She doesn’t know how to swim, but soon she started learning how to and became better at it. At the age of 59, she finally learned how to swim and competed in a half triathlon in 2005. After that, she competed in 11 more full triathlons. Now, she is still not done yet and plans to do 2 more half-triathlons next year.

This is just one example of how old people still can pursue sports like the triathlon even when they’re 80 years old or 8 years old. Since they’re no age limits on the triathlon, any age joining in would be possible and even a chance of them finishing the competition.