Who does 20 triathlons e who da Malta goes in India walking
Twenty Ironmans in a maximum of 28 days! Superhuman effort. There's also a Maltese among the Super 8s igniting the Brazilian May. A breeze of lucid madness blows across the island, given that the Epic Cap is being chased in South Africa every year and a twenty-five-year-old has set off on a 12.000-kilometer adventure to reach India on foot, collecting disposable plastic every day.
There is a sport that graduates iron men, Ironman Exactly. It's the triathlon. It comes from America – of course – and is multidisciplinary: 3,8 kilometers of swimming, 180 kilometers of cycling, 42,195 kilometers (a marathon) of running. It's also called Super Long and, as you can imagine, it is…longer than the 70,3 or Half Ironman, of the Long ofOlympic. In addition to racing bikes, it can also be raced on mountain bikes or, if you really want to be different, even on gravel bikes.
Let's consider the classic Ironman. Like all respectable sports, it includes national, continental, and world championships. And it's been at the Olympics since Sydney 2000. But those are different stories. If you skip one discipline, it becomes a duathlon. Etc.
Let's stick with the classic Ironman, as we were saying. Some people even manage it two or three times in a row. It would take psychological studies to define the characteristics of those who aim to push their limits that far. Observing up close the ambassadors of this double or triple adventure (all in a row, of course) is astonishing. You can imagine the broken bones he left with after a meeting with Fabio Spiteri to enjoy a simple coffee on the Sliema-Gzira seafront, at Aqualuna—to give precise geographical coordinates—in the heart of Malta.
He arrived on a motorcycle from Birkirkara with his wife, four dogs, and a few rabbits: all in the same house. I descended from the second floor of a neighboring building, and by elevator, too: a short walk and we were at the café table with Hugo, the faithful Lagotto Romagnolo, who looked kindly at Spiteri because he carried the scents of his four adopted dogs with him to keep them off the streets. One is blind, and when the leader is at home, he stays closer to him than the others, obviously because he needs more contact.
And what does all this have to do with it? It all makes perfect sense because, starting Saturday, May 1, 2026, we can't help but think with curiosity about the latest folly of Spiteri and seven other "daring" cyclists: far from Paris-Roubaix, cycling's "Latest Folly," far from the "Hell of the North"... Maltese Spiteri is awaiting a much greater folly: the Double Deca, that is, twice the 10 triathlons in a row. That's 20 triathlons!, in case you hadn't figured it out.
Calculator in hand, we're talking 76 kilometers of swimming, 3.600 kilometers of cycling (an entire Tour de France, not 23 days and 21 stages...), and 843,9 kilometers of running. Spiteri aims to bounce back from his previous defeat and surpass "King Beto" in three weeks. Experts say anyone can complete the 672 kilometers, or 28 days, an extra week. We'll be following him day after day on his social media profiles, which are always packed with information and curiosities. And we'll be waiting for him in Malta for the new general elections.
Chapeau!
If they're not crazy, we don't want them: is it worth echoing the film starring Paolo Stoppa, directed by Esodo Pratelli, 85 years after its release? Yes, it is. Because here they are truly crazy... Fabio Spiteri once gave up. For this adventure, he confesses to having prepared himself thoroughly in Malta, Gozo, and Sicily, at sea and in the pool: he, who is in his fifties, aims to be the 33rd superman in a challenge unparalleled on Earth. The first goal is to surpass himself. The ultimate goal is to raise €100.000 in donations to help abandoned dogs.
Chapeau-encore!
Along with Spiteri, massage therapist Philip Cachia and nutritionist Philip Cauchi also flew to Brazil. Awaiting them in Armacao dos Buzios, Rio de Janeiro, along with expert ultra-triathlon organizer Daniel de Oliveira, were primarily local champions, led by Beto Stael, followed closely by Alexandre Fontenelle and Ricardo dos Santos.
Besides Spiteri and the three Brazilians, the field of Super 8 contenders is completed by Frenchman Goulwenn Tristant, Czech Jurij Tarca, Canadian Shanda Hill and Polish Jurand Czabanski, who more than anyone will look up to his compatriot Robert Karas, record holder of this stratospheric distance of 4.520 kilometres in 164 hours, 14 minutes and 2 seconds.
That a certain wind of madness is blowing in Malta seems to be also confirmed by the participation of more than one couple in the Cape Epic in South Africa – the 2026 performance is to be attributed to Marie Claire Aquilina and Etienne Bonello – and by an adopted Pakistani, who
One person with no record to break is Indian activist Jaydip Lakhankiya, known in Malta as the "Climate Walker" because he set out from the island to reach India on foot, initially using only the ferry crossings to Pozzallo (Sicily) and Villa San Giovanni (Calabria). The signal was given, as it happens, by Fabio Spiteri, a triathlon coach by profession, who will metaphorically push Jaydip through the 20 countries he will cross. To raise global awareness about climate change, the young man will walk 12.000 kilometers, collecting (and throwing away) at least a bagful of plastic bottles and objects found along the way every day.
The twenty-five-year-old trekking instructor, who lives in Malta, has planned crossings of Italy, Croatia, Serbia, Turkey, Georgia, Iran (Donald J. Trump permitting, since the route there will take him over 2300 km), and Pakistan before arriving in his native India: all within... kilometer zero. The estimated time is a year and a half. We'll talk again in late summer 2027, once the mission is accomplished.
Even in Italy, there's no shortage of courageous individuals with a desire to constantly push themselves. Alongside seventy-seven-year-old Valter De Rossi, the category champion in triathlon, there's also someone thinking of cycling around the world at 19: Lorenzo Muretti, who after North Cape will head to the United States to continue his 30-month-long daily struggle.
Sara Bonfanti, however, has already secured a trophy in her trophy cabinet. In 2022, she hiked for eleven months along the Italian Alpine Club's 7.200 trails. Starting from Santa Teresa di Gallura (Sardinia), she tackled both the Apennine and Alpine ridges, skipping just ten percent of the routes surveyed, but enjoying the beauty and solitude of around twenty Italian National Parks.
As they say… if they're not crazy, we don't want them.
