Originally published at: Faces of Nice: Meet the Inspiring Age Groupers of the 2025 IRONMAN World Championship - Slowtwitch News
Aaron Fleming is ready for his first shot at the IRONMAN worlds. Photo: Kevin Mackinnon
No matter what IRONMAN event you go to, you’re bound to find people with interesting and inspirational stories, and that is certainly the case at the IRONMAN World Championship. There are more than 2,500 athletes set to compete in Nice, France, this weekend, and every one of them has a unique story.
Unfortunately, we can only share a few of these stories, but the ones that we have selected are incredible. Today, we will feature New Zealand’s Aaron Fleming and Mohammad Shamsuzzaman Arafat of Bangladesh, and although they have had wildly different paths to this year’s world championship event, they are equally inspiring in their own right.
“Someone’s Gotta Come Last”
When Fleming was 16 years old, his life changed forever.
“My right lung decided to collapse and would not stay up,” he says. “It just continued to collapse.”
He needed a pair of major surgeries to fix the issue, but he was given the devastating news that his days of physical activity were pretty much over. At the time, he was a high-level gymnast and he had set his sights on representing New Zealand on the world stage, but out of nowhere that dream was “ripped away.”
“I was told that I’d never be able to be physically active again,” Fleming says. “In fact, the words were, ‘Sport will be from the couch for you.'”
A look at Fleming’s scar from his lung surgery. Photo: Kevin Mackinnon
For the next five years or so, Fleming lived that prescribed life. He wasn’t active, he rarely exercised and he suffered because of it. He says he was “mentally unwell” and “emotionally challenged” in this time, but then he learned about IRONMAN triathlon.
It was in 2006 when Fleming completed his first IRONMAN in New Zealand. He says he never expected to be anywhere near the top of the rankings at this race or any other he competed in, and he instead prepared himself for a late-stage finish on race day.
“Someone’s gotta come last,” he says. “For me, starting off, last meant ‘Learner Acquiring Strength and Toughness.’ Now, 20 years on, it’s ‘Legacy or Legend Acquiring Strength and Toughness.'”
Nearly two decades since his IRONMAN debut, Fleming is still fighting to make the 17-hour cut-off on race days, but he has no issue with it. After all, back when he was just a teenager, he was told any physical activity was out of the question.
“I’m a back-of-the-pack Kiwi battler,” he says. “When you get told you can’t do something, to be able to actually prove that wrong, it’s a dream come true.”
When Fleming got started in triathlon, he says he wouldn’t have dreamed of racing at a world championship event, so he made up his own challenge. He decided to race an IRONMAN on the six continents that host the events (Antarctica is the only continent without an IRONMAN). He completed that goal just this year after he crossed South America off his list at IRONMAN Brazil.
That was the 19th IRONMAN of his career, and although it was his A-race for the year at the time, when he was offered a spot in Nice, he couldn’t pass it up. He says he very well could be one of the last competitors to cross the line on Sunday, but he will wear that as a badge of honour. He has already done so much more than he or anyone else could have predicted all those years ago, so anything more at this point is a bonus.
First Bangladeshi Finisher Back for More
In 2022 in St. George, Utah, Arafat became the first Bangladeshi to cross the finish line of the IRONMAN World Championship. A year later, he travelled to Nice to compete at the worlds once again, and now, he is back once more.
When Arafat first raced at the world championship, he wasn’t as busy as he is now. Back then, he only had one child, but now he has two (a six-year-old son and a seven-month-old daughter), so he juggles dad duties, a full-time job (he works at Bangladesh’s central bank) and his training.
“I’m very busy with my family and my office,” he says with a laugh. Like so many other IRONMAN athletes, Arafat finds a way to fit it all in, which led to him qualifying for his third crack at the worlds. He booked his ticket to Nice at IRONMAN Malaysia (the site of his first race at that distance in 2017), where he stopped the clock in 11:30:57.
Arafat completed the practice swim event in Nice ahead of his third appearance at the IRONMAN World Championship. Photo: Kevin Mackinnon
“It is special to come back to the IRONMAN World Championship,” he says. “I am really happy to represent my country.” Arafat is the first from Bangladesh to finish a world championship race, but this year he has a fellow Bangladeshi with him at the event.
“I’m very happy to have company with me,” he says, adding that another compatriot of his qualified for Nice but couldn’t make the trip. “We are not fast, but happy to be here.”
As one might guess, training in Bangladesh is a bit different than doing so in Europe or North America, but Arafat doesn’t let that stop him.
“We have less training facilities,” he says. “It’s all about [passion], but sometimes you need a good training ground, [too]. The roads for cycling, the roads for running, the swimming pool. We don’t have a [good] swimming pool, we don’t have the roads for long rides.”
There is a six-mile stretch of road that is good for riding, Arafat says.
“We do long rides on [that] again and again,” he says. “It’s really a matter of joy to welcome those challenges and be here.”
And what are his goals for the race on Sunday? They’re pretty simple.
“How fast and how slow, it doesn’t matter to me,” he says. “But I want to be at the finish line with my country’s flag. It’s a very special feeling.”