Penn State men’s swimming & diving alumni Chip Berry, class of 1996, and Brad Semle, class of 1990, will compete in Saturday’s Ironman World Championships in Hawaii.
Semle, who competed from 1987-90 under the direction of former Nittany Lion head coach Peter Brown, will team with James "Chip" Berry, who graduated in 1996. Berry, like Semle, also competed for Brown in the 90’s.
The Ironman World Championships will take place in and around Kona, Hawaii. The event is long-distance triathlon in swimming, cycling and running. Competitors take part in a 2.4-mile swim in open waters followed by a 112-mile bike ride. The participants then cap the race off with a marathon of 26.2 miles without a break.
The Ironman World Championships have been held in Hawaii annually since 1978 and is known as one of the harshest competitions in the world with some of the best athletes competing. Participants are under a strict schedule to complete certain portions of the race in order to finish.
The race begins at 7 a.m. local times and swimmers must be out of the water by 9:20 a.m. The cycling portion must be completed by 5:20 p.m. and the marathon is supposed to be completed at Midnight, 17 hours after the initial start of the race. The Hawaii course record is 8 hours, 4 minutes and 8 seconds set in 1996 by Belgian Luc Van Lierde, while the women’s record was set in 2009 at 8 hours, 54 minutes and 2 seconds by Chrissie Wellington.
