Triathlon’s Mystery Man Elkhalil Binebine
FOR YEARS I’D HEARD ABOUT THIS MAN from Morocco. People kept wondering how on earth I hadn’t met him and kept telling me I needed to catch up with him to do a story. He’s a billionaire who is passionate about triathlon, they would say. Kristian Blummenfelt and Gustav Iden train at his house in the mountains in Morocco, others would tell me. He’s a fascinating man— you won’t believe his story, they would continue. You’ve got to do a story about him. “Dr. Elkhalil Binebine is one of the most remarkable human beings I know,” Julie Moss wrote in her book Crawl of Fame.
Turns out I’d announced his finishes at races. I’d been busy announcing and covering the Collins Cup in Slovakia while he was there watching. Somehow, we’d never been introduced. So, last January, I asked a mutual acquaintance to introduce us. I asked if I could catch up with him to do an interview. The response didn’t come right away, but when it did, it included an invitation.
“Why don’t you come to visit me at my home in Marrakech?” Binebine said. He knew that I was on my way to the Canary Islands and would be just a few hundred kilometres from Morocco. I couldn’t make that trip work, so I asked if there was another time I could come and visit. “I’ll be at our home in Miami, come and visit me there,” Binebine said. Which is how I found myself in the passenger seat of a Bentley in Miami. We’re on our way to an investment meeting—Binebine figured it would offer some time to catch up. I can’t help but ask why I’m here. Why has this incredibly wealthy man who seems determined to stay out of the spotlight agreed to be interviewed for a feature story in our magazine? Ever since we’d been in touch I’d been trying to do as much background research as I could, and there was precious little to be found. Sure, you could quickly learn about his involvement with Vickers Venture Partners—he was one of the founding partners, along with Dr. Finian Tan, the former deputy
trade minister of Singapore, in the global venture capital firm in 2005. There are a few other links that refer to that position, but little else. Binebine laughs at the question. He tells me that he spends a lot of money every year making sure his name doesn’t appear anywhere. My request, though, had piqued his interest. He asked his family what they thought. His niece and nephew, who had put together a website celebrating his Ironman accomplishments as a birthday present last year (ironbinebine.com), told him he should do it. The invitation to Morocco came the next day.
Binebine grew up in Morocco. His father was the secretary to the King of Morocco for 37 years. His mother was an influential minister in the government. Binebine was a brilliant child, learning to play bridge at three and, according to Moss, won a world championship title with his mother at nine. He started at France’s University of Bordeaux when he was 15 and would go from there to get a medical degree from the Sorbonne. It was while he was working as an orthopedic surgeon in New York that his life completely changed.
Binebine found himself taking care of a man who had been in a terrible motorcycle accident. That man was so impressed with the care that after months of treatment he asked Binebine to come and work for him as his personal physician. Binebine laughed at the suggestion at first—he figured there was no way anyone would be able to match his compensation as a surgeon that also included an apartment in downtown New York. The next day he was presented a 20-year contract that he absolutely couldn’t refuse. The man he was treating? Malcolm Forbes, then one of the richest men in the world.
For the next three-and-a-half years Binebine was constantly at
Forbes’s side. In addition to being his doctor, he became a close friend. When Forbes died of a heart attack in 1990, Forbes’s estate honoured the rest of the contract.
It’s time to introduce Gwilym Hall, Binebine’s husband, to help explain how pivotal this was.
“Suddenly, he was financially independent,” Hall said as I chatted in their expansive living room overlooking the water in Miami. “And he had all these contacts. He knew everyone Malcolm Forbes knew … he had a huge rolodex of influential people. So he decided to go into business rather than go back to medicine.”
For the next decade Binebine would work like a madman. He was making lots of money, but the constant travel and long hours were taking their toll. One morning he woke up in a hotel room and couldn’t figure out where he was. He realized it was time to quit. He sold his business and retired. He bought a house in Gran Canaria, and spent his days playing beach volleyball and tennis.
In 2005 Finian Tan came knocking and Binebine was back in the business world again. He still played a couple of hours of tennis every day, but he was back to a busy schedule with lots of travel. He and Hall had met in London in 2014. In 2015, they would get married. It was around that time that Binebine got inspired to do a triathlon. Once again, stress was an integral factor in the decision. Binebine was working with a company doing cancer research in San Diego. Every day he was getting inundated with requests from people desperate to get involved in trials the company was doing. This is a guy who has never had a drink. Never done drugs, never had a cigarette. “I needed an outlet because the pressure was just too enormous to deal with,” he said. Tennis wasn’t cutting it, so he figured he would stop making fun of his nephew, who was training for a 70.3 race, and try it, too. When he asked Hall whether it would be OK for him to start doing hours of training every day, Hall quickly said he was in, too. “Not only is it OK, but I’ll do it with you, so we don’t have to be apart for four or five hours a day,” Hall told Moss. He would lose 32 kg as he trained alongside Binebine. They hired former Canadian pro triathlete Terry Martin to be their coach. They started with an Olympic-distance race at the London Triathlon, then did a half-distance race in Vichy, France. Next up was Ironman Barcelona in October, 2016 where Binebine finished in 12:51:25. Binebine was hooked. The endorphin hit
from swimming, biking and running surpassed anything he’d experienced on a tennis court or playing beach volleyball. “That’s the only high I ever had in my life,” he said. Since then, Binebine’s competed in 17 Ironman races and 14 70.3 events. Until he had a hip replacement a few years ago, Hall was training and racing as well. These days, though, the family focus is very much on Binebine’s pursuit of triathlon excellence.
As far as both Hall and Binebine are concerned, things are pretty much all in on the triathlon front. Binebine is now coached by Dan Plews, the man who guided Chelsea Sodaro to her huge Ironman World Championship win in 2022. Hall was there last year when Binebine rented out the wind tunnel in Silverstone, England, to test his bike position and trisuit. While I’m in Miami I get to see the dedication to the sport—I join in for part of a 4,000-m early morning swim session and help carry water bottles through a fourhour ride through the Everglades.
“He puts as much commitment as any pro,” Hall said.
No pro lives like this, though. There’s still lots of demands on the business front, and Binebine is also doing work with the World Health Organization. And every day there’s a string of visitors. I’m just one of many visiting one of the two apartments Binebine and Hall have in Miami, and every night there’s a table full of guests for dinner. The first night I’m there there are 14 around the table. The next night things get changed at the last minute— there are too many people to fit around the table, so dinner is switched to a buffet.
“They are Ironmen in their ability to host friends, business partners, family, and guests from around the world,” Moss wrote in Crawl of Fame. “Typical dinner conversation involves an eclectic group from as many as 10 countries, the discussions always compelling. For those who can speak eight languages, like Khalil, the evening becomes a feast for the ears as well as the stomach. (Besides his parental tongues of Arabic and French, he also speaks German, Spanish, Portuguese, Hebrew and English—plus Mandarin Chinese, which he learned when he found himself in a business arrangement with Chinese speakers.)” Binebine thrives in this environment. “They say that extroverts gain energy from a crowd,” Hall explained. “That’s exactly the way it is with Khalil.”
The couple’s kindness and generosity are genuine. Binebine has been known to pull out of deals because he didn’t like the way a potential partner treated the waiter at a restaurant. As far as he’s concerned, “everybody is equal. I receive lots of heads of state, but my staff will still be sitting at the table with us.” And, as Moss pointed out so aptly in her book, he’s always available.
“He will answer the phone while running an interval,” Moss wrote. “We were in middle of a long interval set that included a 20-minute warm-up, and reps of a six-minute run at 10K pace with a one-minute recovery jog in between. Halfway through our third interval, the phone rang. Surely, he’s not going to answer, I thought … but there he was, running swiftly at 10K speed while conversing in French.”
I witnessed the same during that bike ride—he didn’t miss a beat as he spoke in Spanish to Arantxa Sanchez Vicario, organizing a quick visit for later that evening so he could see the 14-time grand slam champions two children.
While he’s stepped down as the vice chairman at Vickers, Binebine remains a consultant with the fund. He’s also involved with Eckuity, a global venture capital investor that put money behind the Professional Triathletes Organisation (PTO) in 2022. Binebine also sits on the PTO’s Board of Directors.
Binebine is quick to point out that the investment is a smart business move, but you can tell there’s a lot of passion behind why he’s involved, too.
“The sport has to evolve, especially for the professionals,” he said. “If you lose at the US Open in the first round, you have $67,000. If you win in Kona, you have $125,000. There is a huge discrepancy, and these are the best athletes on the planet.”
“The investment will be very profitable, but my main concern is nobody is doing anything for the professional triathlete,” he continued. “And that will help the amateur side of the sport as well. It is the only sport where you can play on the same course as the best in the world.”
Binebine’s passion isn’t only helping the sport’s pros, according to PTO CEO Sam Renouf.
“He’s a driving force of energy,” Renouf said. “He’s obviously a successful businessman and he’s a passionate age-group triathlete. He’s been a huge help, not just about the business aspects of the PTO, but also the age-group experience. He’s constantly asking us ‘How do we make the T100 the best age-group experience.’”
Turns out all those people were right. I did need to meet Elkhalil Binebine and find out what drives him to be involved in our sport. During my two-day trip to Miami, I manage to steal 45 minutes where he’s not training, entertaining or running to an investment meeting. The conversation quickly moved to his spirituality. Despite the fact that so many people rave about his kindness and generosity, as far as he’s concerned, he’s still fighting his ego and working hard every day to do better.
Sure, he’s determined to stretch his limits and push himself as a triathlete. Yes, he’s determined to qualify for Kona again and would dearly love to make the podium. In the end, though, what he really wants to do is make a difference.
“I want to find out how I can help other people … and to make a difference in their lives in any way, shape or form I can,” he said. “You can do very serious things in life, but you don’t have to take yourself too seriously.”
Elkhalil Binebine is doing lots of serious things in life. The app he’s working on with the WHO is changing the health options for millions in developing countries. It’s not nearly as important on a life and death basis, but he’s also making a big difference for people in the sport of triathlon.
“I want to find out how I can help other people … and to make a difference in their lives in any way, shape or form I can”