Greg Billington, center, competing at the Chengdu World Cup triathlon in 2015. (Photo courtesy Delly Carr/ITU)
Greg Billington, center, competing at the Chengdu World Cup triathlon in 2015. (Photo courtesy Delly Carr/ITU)
U.S. junior national triathlon team athletes Greg Billington (23) and Zachary Paris discuss their experiences in the World Triathlon Championships in Lausanne, Switzerland, in 2006. Billington, a senior at Lakenheath High School and the defending Department of Defense Dependents Schools-Europe cross country champion, finished 42nd in the 93-racer field; Paris finished 58th. (Stars and Stripes)
Lakenheath senior Greg Billington celebrates his record-setting victory in the men's 3,000-meter race Friday, May 18, 2007, at the 2007 DODDS Europe track and field championships in Ruesselsheim, Germany. (Stars and Stripes)
Greg Billington (Team USA/Bob Long)
Triathlete Greg Billington, a 2007 Lakenheath High graduate, will compete in the Olympic Games this month, becoming one of a select number of DODEA graduates to compete on the world's highest stage. (Courtesy of Greg Billington)
Like many aspiring young athletes, Greg Billington harbored a dream of competing in the Olympics.
But for the 2007 graduate of DODEA-Europe’s Lakenheath High School and a member of the 2016 U.S. Olympic triathlon team, it was more of a mission statement.
“I’ve always thought that there was an Olympian inside everyone, if people had the desire and determination to make it happen,” Billington said via email a few days before the start of the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
“The Olympics were something that I was going to make happen.”
And so he has. Billington’s lifelong goal is due to be fulfilled Thursday, Aug. 18.
Just as a triathlete must complete stages of swimming, cycling and running, each leg of the 27-year-old’s development has been a necessary step in his journey to Rio.
Billington’s grueling path began at 8 years old, when he made his debut for the Lakenheath Barracudas swim club. He went on to dominate in cross country and track at Lakenheath High School.
In a 2004 interview with Stars and Stripes, Billington was already displaying the resolve that would eventually turn his Olympic aspirations into reality.
“I don’t want to think I could have been there and I didn’t try for it,” Billington, then just 15 years old, said.
As he progressed, Billington’s burgeoning abilities in all three required disciplines made it clear that he had a real future in triathlon. He began to focus his training on the event, and in 2006 he launched his international career at the International Triathlon Union Elite Junior Worlds. The following year, the same year he graduated as valedictorian from Lakenheath and began an NCAA running career at Wake Forest University, Billington was the 2007 USA Triathlon Junior Elite National Champion.
Once past his prep and collegiate years, Billington gathered further momentum, including USA Triathlon Under-23 National Championships in 2011 and 2012 and major international victories at Dallas in 2013 and Hong Kong in 2014. In May of 2016, Billington completed a nearly year-long qualification process for the Summer Olympics, joining Joe Maloy and Ben Kanute as the U.S. representatives in Rio.
It’s a role he’s been preparing for his whole life - not just that of an Olympic triathlete, but that of an American ambassador to the world.
“My parents gave me a unique childhood where we traveled over vast areas of the world,” Billington said, citing journeys not just around his host continent of Europe but to the Egyptian pyramids and the Great Wall of China. “Everywhere we went we always did our best to show the best of ourselves.
“Now, I feel so incredibly lucky to have the opportunity to represent America by performing what I’ve dedicated my life to perfecting. I know I wouldn’t be in this position without my parents and a childhood lived overseas.”
For all he’s accomplished in the years that followed, Billington still appreciates the formative impact of his time at Lakenheath.
“I wouldn’t trade my experience at Lakenheath for anything,” Billington said. “Being surrounded by people who dedicated their lives to serving America helped shape me into who I am today.”
Twitter: @broomestripes
