DIGITAL ISSUE
Switching gears: why former AFL star David Zaharakis is chasing IRONMAN glory
The former Essendon midfielder has found a new outlet for his competitive instincts in IRONMAN, setting his sights on a berth at the sport’s pinnacle event: the IRONMAN world championship at Kailua-Kona. Ahead of this weekend’s IRONMAN New Zealand, Zaharakis sat down with Men’s Health to discuss his unique path into a new passion
DAVID ZAHARAKIS WAS on track. It was the beginning of the running leg of the IRONMAN Western Australia, in Busselton, last December and Zaharakis was flying, logging a personal best split in the swim and a scorching cycle leg. That meant he only needed to run a 3.15 in the marathon leg to reach his declared goal of going sub 9 hours for the event. Do that and he would likely have done enough to qualify for the sport’s holy grail: the IRONMAN world championship at Kailua-Kona, in Kona, this October.
The run leg had started promisingly enough. Zaharakis was averaging a 4:10 min/km pace, which if he’d been able to hold, would have put him under his goal time. But 10km in Zaharakis’ athletic past caught up with him, as an old footy injury began to flare up. Soon he was in excruciating pain, each step an act of will. As the spectre of long-term injury loomed, Zaharakis knew he had to make a call.
“I was absolutely on fire,” says Zaharakis of his race pace up to the injury, as he chats to MH from his home in Richmond, fresh from a running session. “In my head I was calculating all this stuff going, Geez, I’m on track for a really good time. Then all of a sudden . . . ” He trails off before smiling. “Football ruins your body.”
Scar tissue from years of rolled ankles on the footy field had become aggravated, stressing the navicular bone in his foot. “My midfoot started to really hurt,” he says. “At the time, I didn’t know whether that was bone or tendon and every step from the 10-kilometre to 21-kilometre mark was just aching pain. Obviously, I was worried that I’d done something to the bone and created a stress fracture. You’re trying to think bigger picture. Well, if you stop now, you might preserve it. If you keep going it might cause a crack. These are the thoughts going through your head.”
Eventually the pain and chance of long-term injury meant Zaharakis had to pull the pin.
“It was frustrating because I was on target, but it all becomes irrelevant when you don’t finish,” he says. “It’s all would have, could have, should have.”
The disappointment hasn’t deterred Zaharakis from pursuing his goal of a berth at Kona. He gets another chance at age group qualification (35-39) at this weekend’s IRONMAN New Zealand, the first event in this year’s calendar. After the pain and despair of Busselton, Zaharakis is circumspect about his chances. “I’m going to New Zealand to try and win my age group and get that spot, but I need to finish [the race] first to do that,” he says.
For an athlete as competitive as Zaharakis, it’s the type of challenge he thrives on.
IF YOU’RE AN AFL fan, you’ll know Zaharakis as Essendon’s hard-running wing who had an eye for the sticks. Over a stellar 13-year career with the Bombers, Zaharakis played 226 games and kicked 136 goals for the club, which he’d supported as a kid, growing up in Eltham.
Today, Zaharakis has mixed emotions when looking back on his AFL career, largely due to the infamous supplements scandal that rocked the club in the 2010s (Zaharakis was cleared of any involvement). A promising playing group that had the chance to contend for premierships was gutted by the suspension of 34 players in 2016.
Overall, though, Zaharakis is happy he was able to achieve his childhood dream. “You look back at what could have been, especially through those four or five years where we had a list that was really competitive and we thought we could compete for finals and flags,” he says. “And then it just got taken away from us. But it shaped who I am in terms of the resilience and perspective on life it gave me. I got to play AFL for 13 years for the footy club I barracked for. If I talked to 5-year-old me, he would absolutely love that.”
That five-year-old kid was a competitor and has remained one to this day. Once his AFL career wound up, Zaharakis was looking for another athletic forum in which to test himself. He played local footy for a year, but it wasn’t the same as performing in front of a hundred thousand screaming fans at the MCG on Anzac Day, as Zaharakis had done. He went on Australian Survivor: Heroes V Villains, in 2023, where he finished 12th. The experience gave him further cause to reflect on what was missing from his life.
“Australian Survivor lit the fire in my belly that I needed competition in my life and I was lacking that spark post-footy,” he says. He and some mates decided to do some swimming to keep active. After the first session, Zaharakis made an impulsive decision. “I don’t really know where the thought came from, but I put on my Instagram story, ‘I want to do an IRONMAN once in my life’.”
It appears the universe was listening. Zaharakis’ good friend, former AFLW player and commentator and Women’s Health cover star Abbey Holmes reached out, putting him in touch with trainer Brad Riddle, founder of Hurt Locker gym, in Richmond.
“He had done a few IRONMANs, and he just loves attacking new projects and goals that people want to achieve in life,” says Zaharakis.
In January 2023, the pair made that year’s IRONMAN Western Australia, in Busselton, their goal, with Riddle signing up alongside Zaharakis. It was a case of love at first brick session.
“I fell in love with the sport, basically straight away,” he says. While he had initially approached Busselton as a one-off bucket-list type of event, by mid-way through the year, he was enjoying training so much he already knew he wanted more.
Zaharakis’ first race would be the IRONMAN 70.3 in Melbourne, in November that year, which he did as a warm-up to Busselton. He would find the competitive environment intoxicating, if slightly bewildering. “Everything was so new,” he says, his eyes bright at the memory. “I remember checking in the day before and I was so nervous. It wasn’t like rocking up to the MCG to play footy. I hadn’t been that nervous in a long time in a sporting environment. But then the actual race was awesome. I love competition, I love racing. I couldn’t wait to get to Busselton a month later.”
Zaharakis would complete 12 triathlons in 2024, a mix of 70.3s and Olympic distance events, before committing full-time to the sport in 2025. He’s now a full-time triathlete and an ambassador with Under Works Australia, who juggles events and training around some junior footy coaching.
Aside from the opportunity it’s given him to test himself against seasoned competitors, Zaharakis immediately warmed to the camaraderie and sense of community that exists among IRONMAN participants.
“Race weeks are awesome,” he says. “You rock up to a place in Australia, or around the world and it’s a big community. All the marquees are set up. Everyone in the street has got the IRONMAN top on and it’s just a big fitness community. You look at people and you know what they’ve been through to get to the start line. It just gives you so much energy and enthusiasm to be in that environment.”
In that respect, Zaharakis draws an interesting distinction between IRONMAN and the AFL, which due to its tribal nature and the microscope it puts players under, can sometimes make for an uncomfortable existence.
“Don’t get me wrong, AFL gave me a lot of positives in life,” he says. “But there are a lot of negatives to it in terms of the critics and fans giving you crap. And we [the AFL] just always turn to the negative rather than the positive stories. In triathlon it’s almost a hundred per cent positive, where everyone uplifts everyone else. That’s what I love.
Zaharakis would lean on that community dynamic after the disappointment of Busselton last year. After a few hours reflecting in his hotel room, he headed down to the finishing line and began talking to people around the event, sharing his disappointment and finding encouragement from others who’d faced similar circumstances and come back stronger.
“It’s hard in the moment,” he says of his experience in Busselton. “It’s very difficult not to be hard on yourself and think What could I have done differently? Did I prepare to the best of my ability, but I find if you just talk to people about how you’re feeling in that moment you get some reassurance that the bigger picture is what matters. It’s not just one race. I started to hear people’s stories about how they finished the IRONMAN and what they did to get there or why they did it. It just brings you back to reality that this whole thing, it’s bigger than you.”
AFL PLAYERS ARE renown as some of the fittest team sports athletes on the planet, with those who occupy the midfield, as Zaharakis did, built like racehorses. Indeed, midfielders and on-ball players regularly log 15-20km a game.
In Zaharakis’ case, he had built up a decent endurance base over the course of his career, though he’d started out as an explosive, pack-breaking goal threat.
“I was never an endurance athlete as a kid. I was shocking,” he says, citing a 15-minute 3.2 km time trial to illustrate his poor engine and pointing to a sub 2.9 20-metre sprint time as proof of his blistering speed. Over his career he would become more of an endurance athlete, though it likely cost him some of his electric pace, he says.
In comparing the two sports’ fitness requirements, Zaharakis believes AFL, with its combination of speed, power and endurance, to be the most dynamic sport in the world. But triathlon, he adds, “is the most gruelling sport in terms of what you have to put in to get out of it”.
Where in footy he trained eight hours a week, plus a game on Saturday, for some, like Zaharakis, IRONMAN training can be a 30-hour-a-week commitment, though, that obviously depends on the athlete’s goals and time they have available to them. The beauty of the sport is that you can be tailor training according to your lifestyle.
All those miles logged running up and down the wing for the Dons certainly helped Zaharakis when it came to the running component of triathlon. He ran a 2:55 marathon at Port Macquarie last year. In that Melbourne 70.3, in 2023, he ran 1:30 in the half marathon. He’s since got that down to 1:19. “My running has become even more of a weapon to me now,” he says.
Swimming and cycling have been a challenge, he admits. “I was never a good biker,” he says. “Whenever we cross-trained at the footy club, I was always one of the worst watt bike riders in terms of power output and endurance. But I’ve had to turn that into a strength.” The extent of his improvement can be seen in his times at Busselton in 2025 compared to his first IRONMAN there in 2023. In December he clocked 4.40 in the cycle leg, compared to 5.30, back in 2023. “I knocked off 50 minutes in two years.”
Similarly, in December he managed to go under an hour for the 3.9km swim for the first time. “From swimming 100m in 1:50, he’s now sub 1:30.
Of course, Zaharakis will be going all out to qualify for Kona at IRONMAN New Zealand this weekend, but he’s ready to pivot should he come up short. “It’s a big goal, but I’m not going to spend my year chasing Kona,” he says. “I’ll just move on to next year or the year after.” He’s also competing in a number of 70.3 races in 2026, including the 70.3 World Championships, in Nice, in September.
Zaharakis has previously said that he’d like to be remembered as both an AFL player and a triathlete, which would be some feat, given how successful he was in footy. He chuckles when I bring up the quote, noting that in triathlon circles, at least, some people aren’t even aware of his AFL background.
“It’s funny now, you meet people at races or the airport and they just know me as a triathlete, because triathlon is a worldwide sport,” he says.
He admits the round-the-clock training schedule required to prepare for an IRONMAN helps his mental wellbeing. “I’m someone who clearly, I have to be moving,” he says. “I was always one that struggled in the off season [in AFL]. I hated those two weeks off with a passion. There’s a lot of people out there similar to me. To be able to feel relaxed, I almost need to tire myself out. IRONMAN training is perfect for that.”
Perhaps most importantly, Zaharakis’ new passion has given him purpose. Much has been written about the struggle many former athletes face in finding direction and identity in their post-playing careers. As Zaharakis points out, he was only 31 when he finished up in footy and while the prevailing narrative is that once your playing days are over, you either get into coaching or commentating or live a quiet life away from the spotlight, it doesn’t have to be that way. As a competitor, Zaharakis can’t imagine watching life go by from the sidelines.
“The culture of AFL footy is you retire and either get on the beers and eat crap food or you get a job, which is fine, I just never saw that myself as doing that,” he says. “I just love being an athlete. I love competing.”
You imagine Zaharakis’ five-year-old self would concur.
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