DO - Ohio University College of Osteopathic Medicine

photo provided by Julianna Batizy-Morely, D.O.
OU-COM Grad Goes World Class
I
n an event that attracts more than 3,000 amateur
triathletes from around the world, Julianna Batizy-
Morley, D.O. (‘96), won the 2005 International
Triathlon Union’s World Championship in Honolulu
last October.
Victory was even sweeter because just a year earlier
on Thanksgiving, Batizy-Morley passed out while
swimming and was diagnosed with multiple
bilateral pulmonary emboli. According to her father,
Levente Batizy, D.O., director of medical education
at South Pointe Hospital, Cleveland, Ohio, and CORE
clinical professor of emergency medicine, “she
could barely walk across the room without getting
short of breath.”
“It was a huge setback physically and took me six
months or more to recover,” Batizy-Morley says.
Doctors were not even sure she would regain pulmonary
function. The emboli left her with joint pain, mouth
sores, hoarseness and possible connective tissue disease.
Against all those odds, however, she trained to
become No.1 in the world for her class.
Batizy-Morley completed the grueling 1,500 meter
open-water swim, 40-kilometer bike course and 10-
kilometer run in two hours, 12 minutes and 57
seconds to win the female 35-39 age division. She
was one of only 18 women in her age group to earn
a place at the Worlds.
“To see her on top of the podium in Honolulu …
was an absolute thrill,” her father says.
Batizy-Morley, who had been a competitive swimmer
in high school, didn’t even start thinking about
triathlons until almost two decades later.
“I had done one or two (triathlons) in Ohio when I
lived there just to see what they were like,” she says,
“but didn’t take them too seriously.”
Her children’s swim team coach, Gregory Zgliczynski,
saw one of her swims and suggested she make the
switch to triathlons. In 2003 Zgliczynski began coaching
Batizy-Morley, and in May of 2004, at the age of 33,
she won her first triathlon.
Batizy-Morley trains hard and works as an emergency
room physician, “every other week, every other
day,” to reconcile the demands of motherhood with
her 20-hour-a-week training schedule. On work
weeks, for instance, she might be up 36 hours
straight. Does she ever sleep? “That’s the million dollar
question,” she laughs. “I don’t sleep as much as I
should. I guess residency was a good way to get
used to it.”
Batizy-Morley is now setting her sights on a bigger
goal: to become a professional triathlete. That will
require her to compete in at least three races with
more than 500 participants and place in the top
eight. With two such wins already under her belt as
of this writing, she was confident she could cinch the
third in the spring.
Zgliczynski has no doubt she’ll join the pros.
“At the age of 30, many people look for the easy way
out,” he says. “She’s almost like a teenager with dreams,
day in, day out, willing to take a lot of punishment.”
–Sally Linder and Melissa Cabral
Despite bilateral pulmonary emboli, Julianna Batizy-Morely, D.O. (‘96), rose to world-class status as a triathlete.
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