For his age Faris Al-Sultan gathered a lot of experience at all distances. At the Young age of 19 (1997) he finished his first Ironman on Lanazarote ( 10:33 hours ) with 16 he ran his first marathon (3:10 ) in his native city Munich. His first big victory was at the German Long-Course Championships 2000 where he beat the ruling German champion Sigi Ferstl with a time of 8:22 h he proved his talent.
In 2001 he was second at the IM Brasil and close to become the youngest IM champion. In 2002 he became German middle distance champion at the tough course of Immenstadt.

2003 after a less successful beginning (drop out with tech problems at World Long Course Championships in  Ibiza he  made it into the Top 10 on Hawaii with a 7th place. In 2004 after a long breakaway he got caught at the Quelle challenge still to stay under 8 hours and become German Long course champ again. In Hawaii he made it onto the podium with a 3rd place.

In 2005 he won his first IM at the inaugural race in  Arizona by 17 minutes. The good beginning of the season was overshadowed by a bike crash at the German shortcourse championships which prohibited his start in Roth.
But he made up for it on Hawaii where after exiting the water in third position, he lead the race for a long time on the bike to be second out of transition. After conquering the lead again he didn’t let go to become the third German after Thomas Hellriegel, his role model, in 1997 and Normann Stadler in 2004  to win the big race.