ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014\u00a0One of the largest Olympic distance triathlons returned to St. Petersburg this weekend.<\/p>\n
The St. Anthony\u2019s Triathlon celebrated its 43rd anniversary downtown.<\/p>\n
What You Need To Know<\/p>\n
The St. Anthony\u2019s Triathlon celebrated its 43rd anniversary in St. Petersburg
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Antony Mascovich did the Olympic triathlon; last year he did the sprint triathlon
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Mascovich weighed more than 370lbs, but after a bariatric surgery, and a change in diet, he now weighs 210lbs
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Mascovich said his new weight has unlocked new parts of life\u00a0<\/p>\n
People from all over participated in the sporting event.<\/p>\n
Antony Mascovich had seen the triathlon and thought it might be fun to complete one day. At the time, he wasn\u2019t in shape; he weighed more than 370lbs.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt felt like a lot of the world was closed off, (not) being able to fly on a plane normally without a belt extender, or chase my dogs or my nieces around, playing, things like that,\u201d said Antony Mascovich, an athlete in the Olympic triathlon.<\/p>\n
But that changed in April 2022, when Mascovich got bariatric surgery at BayCare St. Anthony\u2019s Hospital. Post surgery, he said he had to re-learn how to eat and exercise. By 2025, he had worked himself up to the St. Anthony\u2019s Sprint Triathlon.<\/p>\n
He now weighs 210lbs and is doing the longer Olympic triathlon.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is kind of like a symbol of a lot of the world that was closed off to me is now kind of unlocked,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He took in his new athletic opportunity with nearly 3,000 other athletes. There were people of all skill levels from nearly every state and even other countries.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a great community event. It helps represent our healthy initiatives that BayCare likes to promote. It is a wonderful event for beginners, people of all demographics,\u201d said Patrick McGee, Triathlon Race Director with BayCare Health Systems.<\/p>\n
Mascovich is not stopping now and has even bigger plans for next year.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I was a kid, my dad did triathlons and this year he\u2019s had some heart issues. He had surgery a couple days ago in Arizona. We\u2019re talking about maybe him doing it next year with me,\u201d Mascovich said.<\/p>\n
Not only has his appearance changed, but his life has been totally transformed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014\u00a0One of the largest Olympic distance triathlons returned to St. Petersburg this weekend. The St.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":247622,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[115,596,202,204,203,199,201,200,135,1374],"class_list":["post-247621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-news","tag-pinellas-county","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-tampa","tag-tyler-oneill"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247621\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/247622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}