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A man with Down syndrome completed his second Ironman with the help of his once-obese coach.
The heartwarming duo crossed the finish line hand in hand at the Kailua-Kona, Hawaii Ironman race on October 6. The race is a 140-mile excursion consisting of a 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike ride, and 42-mile run.
Chris Nikic, 22, of Orlando, Florida and his coach Dan Grieb, 48, of Winter Springs, completed the trek in 16 hours and 31 minutes, faster than their first time logged into their home state in 2020.
Grieb started doing Ironman challenges to lose excess weight and now coaches others to complete the physically intense challenge.
“Success isn’t about what you do, it’s about who you become in the process,” Grieb told Fox News. America’s Newsroom.
“Chris Nikic is a great young man, he has Down syndrome. People like him have been told all their lives that they wouldn’t pay much – I heard that when I was younger – and I thought, wouldn’t it be great if I could give this gift to someone like me?
“What if someone with Down syndrome could become an Ironman?”
A video of the pair shows them crossing the finish line this month in bright orange shirts and spandex Ironman shorts, raising their arms in triumph before falling into a heartfelt hug.
Dan Grieb, 48, of Winter Springs, (left) began taking Ironman challenges to lose excess weight and now coaches others to complete the physically intense challenge, leading him to Chris Nikic, 22, of Orlando (right).
On October 6, he crossed the finish line in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, with his intern Chris Nikic, 22, of Orlando, Florida. Complete the challenge in 16 hours and 31 minutes
The two came with their hands up in celebration of the finish (pictured)
The two started training together three years ago after Grieb became a coach after his tenth Ironman
“They said I couldn’t do Kona. It was too heavy, the heat, humidity, wind, hills, mountains, ocean currents,” Nikic wrote on Facebook before revealing he finished even faster than Florida.
He did have some issues with the wind, as the pair had to run at a wind speed of 30 mph for the entire race, but the competitor had arrived in Hawaii early to train for it.
“We were out there… on the mountain every day for a week and a half, practicing until he finally got it. And it took him a while, but he understood,” his father Nik said.
In 2020, he completed the challenge — which has a 17-hour time limit — in 16 hours and 46 minutes in Florida.
The average Ironman completion time is approximately 12.5 hours, with the fastest time ever clocked by a male competitor at 7.5 hours.
“I can prove to kids that if I can’t do it, they can too,” he told the… Show today.
Nikic also revealed that for the past year he had done “15 to 20 workouts a week” to train for the physically exhausting competition and that he had “a lot of great people train with me to make it fun,” including Grieb.
Born with Down syndrome, Nikic also had heart surgery at four months and had to use a walker when he was four (pictured)
In 2018, the motivational speaker also participated in the Florida Special Olympics
Nikic (pictured in 2020) completed his first Ironman in 2020, along with Grieb
The pair started their journey together three years ago and Grieb “still can’t believe we did it.”
Grieb started his own Ironman journey as a way to lose weight because he was obese, he told America’s Newsroom.
“One day I woke up and I was 120 pounds overweight,” Grieb, a real estate agent, told America’s Newsroom. “I was looking for a race to challenge me to get in shape and stay in shape, and I found this Ironman race.
“I said I would complete 10 and I would lose 100 pounds and retire.”
They also shared an emotional hug later after the race. The pair started their journey together three years ago and Grieb ‘still can’t believe we did it’
The pair (pictured with Nikic’s father) have now completed two Ironmans together
Grieb started doing Ironman when he was ‘obese’ to lose 100 pounds
But the coach said he felt “dissatisfied” after crossing his tenth finish line and decided to return “this gift” to someone else, which brought him to Nikic.
“Life is 10 percent what happens to you and 90 percent how you react to it,” Grieb said.
Nikic has come a long way in life, starting with terrifying heart surgery when he was four months old, to needing a walker at age four, to becoming a Florida Special Olympics athlete at eighteen.
Since completing two Ironmans, he plans to do more, as well as “six major marathons: Tokyo, Boston, Berlin, London, Chicago, NYC,” he said on his Facebook page.