Rowing challenge conquered - Julian Bajada completes 28-kilometre feat

Updated 8.30pm - Challenge ends

After months of long training sessions, paralympic athlete Julian Bajada on Tuesday successfully concluded a mammoth 28-kilometre non-stop rowing challenge on an indoor machine. He started rowing just after 6pm and completed the challenge in two hours, 23 minutes and 33 seconds“I’m super excited and pumped up, and I just want to remind people why I am doing this - for Malta to have its first national paralympic rowing program,” Bajada told Times of Malta moments before embarking on his feat. A lawyer by profession, Bajada is the secretary-general of the Malta Paralympic Committee. Last year, he led Team Malta in the Paralympic Games in Tokyo.

During the challenge, he covered a distance equivalent to that between Mellieħa and Sliema. He is the first Maltese paralympic athlete to row this distance non-stop.

The challenge is not an easy one for anyone with two hands, but Bajada did it with one. To row, Bajada attaches a strap to his short right arm to extend it so that he can do the full rowing motion.

Julian Bajada at the start of his mammoth challenge on Tuesday afternoon. Video: Giulia MagriThe funds Bajada collects will be invested in...