“If you can dream it, you can make it happen.” Meet Bangladesh’s first Ironman World Championship finisher

So, you think you’ve got some challenges when it comes to training? Picture living in a spot where the roads are so bad the only place you can ride your bike is on the highway. And, as if cars travelling at high speeds isn’t enough of a problem, a lot of times when you jump on the only bit of smooth pavement around, the police come and kick you off.

Welcome to training in Dhaka, Bangladesh. I’m learning all this from Mohammed Shamsuzzaman Arafat, one of the country’s few Ironman athletes. Arafat was the first person to compete at the Ironman 70.3 World Championship – a feat he achieved in St. George in Sept., 2021, thanks to his Ironman virtual racing during COVID. Last year he became the first Bangladeshi to compete at an Ironman World Championship – once again, in St. George.

That wasn’t cutting it for Arafat, though. The 33-year-old has 27 life goals he wants to achieve. Among those are qualifying for Kona, competing in all six marathon majors, climbing Mount Everest, finishing an Ironman in under 10 hours, finishing the Norseman Xtreme triathlon, and finishing an Ironman alongside his son. (That one is going to have to wait for a bit – Mohammad Ahyash is only four and a half.)

The operative word there was Kona. So, a few weeks after competing at last year’s Ironman 70.3 World Championship in St. George (he’d qualified at Ironman 70.3 Goa in India just before the COVID pandemic started), Arafat returned to the site of his first Ironman race in 2017, Malaysia. His runner-up finish in his age group nailed him a Kona slot.

Then, a few months later, Arafat learned that the men’s Ironman World Championship wouldn’t be happening in Hawaii this year. It was taking place in Nice. As much as he wanted to race in Kona, the thought of waiting two more years for the chance to race on the Big Island wasn’t cutting it for Arafat. And, since he’d qualified for the Ironman 70.3 World Championship in Lahti at Ironman 70.3 Goa in India, he figured he’d make the trip and hit both events.

Inspirational figure

Before I recount the next part of Arafat’s excellent European Ironman world championship journey, let me take a step back and explain to you a few things you should know about this 33-year-old deputy manager at the Bangladesh Central Bank.

First off, remember that Ironman race in St. George? It’s crazy that Arafat was even able to finish it. On the high-speed descent down from Snow Canyon, Arafat had a horrible crash. Bloodied and battered (he shows me the scars on his arm and back as he recounts the story), officials suggested that maybe he should call it a day.

“I’m the first person from my country at this race,” he thought to himself. “I can’t stop. I want to finish the marathon, then I’ll go to the doctor.”

Which is exactly what he did.

While those of us in the Ironman world might think Arafat is an impressive badass, a lot of folks in Bangladesh already knew that.

In 2013 Arafat had no idea what Ironman was. He’d started training at Dhaka University, joining a group who were training to go mountain climbing in Nepal. They trained every morning. While he wouldn’t be able to join the group for their expedition (he couldn’t get a visa and was sick), that training got him started in running. He would do his first half-marathon in a place called Cox’s Bazar. His first marathon was in India. Along the way someone told him about Ironman. He checked it out on YouTube and immediately became enraptured by the sport. While he was desperate to do one, there was one issue. He couldn’t swim. Well, to be exact, he couldn’t swim 50 m.

So, like every other athlete who can’t swim two lengths of a pool, Arafat set a goal to swim the International Bangla Channel Marathon. That’s a 16.1 km swim from the mainland to St. Martin’s Island in the Bay of Bengal. He finished that in 2016.

Now confident that he could finish the swim at an Ironman, Arafat figured he’d work on running.

This time he decided he take on a bigger challenge than simply finishing a marathon. In 2017 he decided he would run across the country. His 1,004 km journey from Teklaf to Tetulia included 50 km of running for 20 days straight. Well, that and a 5 km swim.
Arafat’s route included a 5 km stretch across the Bangabandhu bridge. When he tried to run across, he was stopped by the police, who pointed out that pedestrians weren’t allowed on the bridge. So, the next day, he swam across the Yamuna River, against the tide, then restarted his run.

You can see more about his run in this video (there are English subtitles):

Once the run was completed, Arafat then got himself working on his cycling, riding his $200 bike enough to get himself ready for his first Ironman in Malaysia later that year.

In 2018 he got married and, like many wise newlyweds, decided not to compete in any Ironman races. In 2019 he journeyed to the Ironman European Championship in Frankfurt, then competed at Ironman Malaysia once again. Early in 2020 he completed Ironman 70.3 Thailand. Then COVID hit, and he was stuck with virtual racing.

Arafat’s excellent European adventure

OK, now that we’re caught up, it’s easy to understand why, for Arafat, two Ironman world championship events in a couple of weeks wouldn’t be nearly enough. That’s why his trip includes the Berlin Marathon (a chance to get started on that six major marathon goal). And, since this is a guy who obviously doesn’t understand normal limits, he won’t be heading home to wife Sumaiya Yeasmine Shoma and Mohmammed junior after he’s done in Berlin – he’ll be heading straight to Langkawi for Ironman Malaysia where he hopes to finally nail that chance to race in Kona.

Somehow he manages to fit coaching into his schedule alongside work and training. Four of the 12 athletes he coaches got invited to Nice based on their finishes at Ironman Malaysia last year. It’s hardly a surprise that he speaks at corporate functions, elaborating on the doctrine that has allowed him to achieve all that he has.

“If you want to do it, if you dream something, you can do it,” he says during an interview a week before his race in Nice.

His feats have led to support from both individuals and corporations in Bangladesh – his former employer, NRDC bank, paid for a bike, and Faisel Hyderabad, a personal sponsor, paid for a new one when the first was demo’d in a bike crash. He’s got three corporate sponsors, MGI, Apex Lingerie Ltd and Nutri Plus.

In January, 2022 Arafat started working with coach Bjorn Ludick, and since then he’s achieved many of his triathlon goals. While Kona remains on his list, he’s looking forward to exploring more of those 27 life goals, too.

Ludick’s got things pretty easy – there’s not much that’s ever going to stop this guy. Here’s yet another example: while riding the bike course yesterday, Arafat’s Di2 stopped working, leaving him in one gear.

“Think about if this happened during the race,” Arafat thought to himself. “Luckily enough it stopped in a small gear, so I finished the 180 km.”

“I never give up on my goal,” Arafat says. “If I start doing something, I keep going. If it happens, that is great. If it doesn’t happen, I tried my best.”

It seems like Arafat’s best is plenty good enough.