Australian endurance athlete Kent Ohori crossed the finish line of the 2025 Gold Coast Marathon in 2 hours and 29 minutes while holding an unlit cigarette.
Averaging 3:32 per kilometer, Ohori delivered one of the day’s most talked-about performances, not just for his impressive time, but for the statement he made along the way.
The cigarette wasn’t a joke. It was a message.
“The fake cigarette isn’t just a prop,” he wrote in a post after the race. “It’s a promise that we all have the power to change, to grow, and to become more than we ever imagined.”
Eight years ago, Ohori was smoking a pack a day. At the time, he was neither a triathlete nor a runner. But after a running injury forced him to cross-train, he slowly pieced together a new identity, first by swimming and cycling, then by diving headfirst into triathlon.
In 2020, he qualified for the Ironman World Championships in Kona at his first full-distance race. Two years later, he set a record for the Everestman triathlon challenge, becoming the fastest person to complete a full Everest of elevation (8,848 meters) across all three triathlon disciplines, swim, bike, and run.
That effort took him 40 hours in the sweltering Brisbane summer. By comparison, the Gold Coast Marathon was quick, but the symbolism hit just as hard.
The 2:29 finish marks a new chapter for Ohori, who credited his recent improvement to six months of coaching from Matt Hanson, and the Saucony Endorphin Elite 2s he wore on race day. “I had no obligation to wear them,” he noted in his post, “but they were honestly the most efficient shoe I tested.”
The marathon was never about the props or the gear, though. For Ohori, it’s always been about showing what’s possible when you commit to the long game. From the chain-smoking days of 2017 to the brutal Everestman feat in 2022, his journey is full of proof that progress rarely looks linear, but it always adds up.
“This is just the beginning,” he wrote.
And if Gold Coast is anything to go by, there’s a lot more coming.
