Chris Nikic, maybe the most amazing Ironman ever

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Chris Nikic, swimming in HawaiiYou CAN achieve your dreams. You really can. I’m not saying this because I know you personally (I don’t need to), I’m saying it because I know of a young man who has demonstrated that achieving your dreams IS possible, whoever you are, and whatever odds you have stacked against you.

This young man’s name is Chris Nikic. He was born in 1999. With Down syndrome. At just five months old he underwent open-heart surgery. Learning to walk was a struggle for him, as it is for all of us, but specially for him, with his medical difficulties, and he couldn’t manage it till he was four years old. Not a very auspicious start in life, I think you’ll agree.

Yet young Chris had a dream. He wasn’t prepared to wallow in his problems. He wanted to live life to the full. On New Year’s Eve, 2019, he told his father, Nick, how he saw his life panning out. He told him he wanted to own his own business, buy his own house, and a car, get married and start a family. Oh, and wanted to be a public speaker so he could help others!

He wanted his life to be an inspiration to others

He wanted to show people that they could do amazing things, by doing something amazing himself. He decided to do a full Ironman triathlon course, which involves a 2.4 mile swim in open water, a 112 mile bike ride, and a full 26.2 mile marathon run to finish, and it all has to be completed within 17 hours. For most of us that would be a massive task to have in mind, but for a young man with Down syndrome it represented a monumental task, and one which would seem practically unbelievable to most people.

But Chris had an ace up his sleeve. His father, Nick, is a successful businessman and was prepared to train him, using his proven 1% better system that he had used so well in business. NIck’s idea was to help Chris by encouraging him to aim to do just one percent better at everything, every day. Just one percent. In fact, his method is very much along the lines of the method Dave Brailsford used to propel the British cycling team to success in the London Olympics.

And the results have been nothing short of extraordinary. “I knew that by getting one per cent stronger every day, that one day I’d be able to complete an Ironman,” Chris said, and his plan seems of have worked. If he can do it, so can you. He made the effort to do one more length of the pool every day in training, and one more pull-up, and one more sit-up. Whatever he did, he aimed to improve it or increase it every day, but always keeping safety in mind and aiming to never injure himself.

1% better: the method we should all emulate

Chris Nikic, bike ridingHis progress was slow, but steady. Any progress is progress, he told himself. Even the slightest. And he just kept getting better at everything he did. First time out, he took on what’s called a sprint triathlon, which consists of a 750m swim, a 20km bike ride and a 5km run. Chris came 10th out of 10 entrants in that race, but he didn’t let that put him off. How many of us would have quit at this point … assuming we would ever have reached this point, that is. But Chris kept on, and in November 2020, not even a year into his training, he made history by completing Ironman Florida.