Giulio Molinari

Giulio Molinari is one of the finest triathletes Italy has ever produced, a three-time champion of both Europe and his country.

Molinari also holds the honour of producing the best performance ever by an Italian at the IRONMAN World Championship in Kona - a 20th-place finish in 2018 in a time of 8:21:52. He also completed on the BIg Island a year earlier in 2017.

Giulio took up triathlon initially for fun in April 2002 as a junior. He was a competitive swimmer, took part in cross-country races and also enjoyed mountain biking in his spare time so decided to put the three together.

Molinari was clearly a natural as within a few months he was claiming a junior national title and a silver medal at the European Youth Championships in Graz.

2007 saw Giulio take the plunge and make triathlon his full-time job with CS Carabinieri (the sporting section of the Italian armed forces).

Since then he has built up an impressive CV - headed by those European titles in 2014, 2016 and 2018 as well as that Kona highlight.

He has also been highly consistent in IRONMAN events, claiming full-distance podiums at Copenhagen in 2018 and Italy Emilia Romagna in 2019 and a 70.3 victory at Staffordshire in 2017. On the Challenge circuit he took the half-distance first prize at Rimini in 2016 and 2017, and at Riccione in 2018.

When he is not competing in triathlons, the thrill of speed is never far away for Giulio as his main passion is cars.. He spends a good portion of his year living and training in Livigno in the Alps, and won his first ICON Xtreme triathlon there in 2019.

Molinari says his career highlight so far was that first European title in Spain in 2014. It came just seven days after his marriage to wife Carlotta, and he rates seeing her write “my husband is European champion” afterwards on social media as his proudest moment.