Five Freezing Cold Takes for the Men’s 2025 IRONMAN World Championship

Championship season is upon us, with the kickoff to it just two days away at the men’s 2025 IRONMAN World Championship in Nice, France. I think the one thing that we can all agree on: September does not make it feel like world championship season. Don’t just take my word for it: Google Trends shows that the September race doesn’t have quite the same search volume as a certain race in October.

The largest spikes are in and around Kona, regardless of gender.

Now, could that be due to tradition? Because interest is “only” in Kona? We only have this year left to figure that out, as IRONMAN will move back to a single-day world championship format for the full distance in 2026.

Photo: Tim Hemming

With all that in mind, we’re focused on the professional race here. Based on the above sign-in chart, 56 men appear to be ready to start on Sunday morning. To put on the hyperbole hat for a moment, it’s one of the deepest fields ever to race the IRONMAN World Championships, with a mix of the old IRONMAN guard (Kristian Blummenfelt, Patrick Lange, Magnus Ditlev and Cameron Wurf) and full-distance world championship debuts (Martin Van Riel and Jonas Schomburg), among plenty of others.

Here are my patented “Freezing Cold Takes” for Sunday. Although I’ve had a decent track record with my predictions, you can be assured I will be wrong at some point. (And feel free to make fun of me for it in the Forum).

This is Kristian Blummenfelt’s Race to Lose

Photo: Kevin Mackinnon

This feels like the moment in Infinity Wars just before Thanos picks up the final Infinity Stone. You know that he’s going to win. You feel it in your bones.

Blummenfelt and team left no stone unturned during the off-season after a lackluster 2024 post-Paris. Blummenfelt had struggled at multiple events with stomach issues and was not the same explosive, dynamic athlete that had rampaged across events across all distances from 2022 to the start of 2024. And it looked like his string of bad luck and results might continue in 2025, with a flat tire contributing to a 15th place finish at Oceanside.

Naturally, he’s since won the three races he has started, all in characteristic Blummenfelt form: good swim, eye-watering bike splits, and blistering run pace. He’s run 2:30 and 2:34 marathons this year on run courses that are harder than the one he’ll face on Sunday. Sure, they are not off the back of the kind of bike course that Nice provides. But, on paper, he’s the overwhelming favorite. A Blummenfelt win feels inevitable.

The Three Most Likely to Dethrone Him: Rudy Von Berg, Magnus Ditlev and Gustav Iden

Let’s start off with Ditlev. My initial inkling when starting to write this article was to take him for the win here. But that would be ignoring the mountain of evidence that Blummenfelt’s 2025 has thrown my way. And Ditlev, since his win in South Africa in March, has not exactly set the world on fire, with a 12th in St. George and an eighth in Frankfurt. Granted, those results included two flats in Utah and a bizarre red card (that was later rescinded, in Frankfurt. Perhaps most critically, though, his run was nearly 18 minutes behind Blummenfelt in Germany. That won’t work in Nice.

But Ditlev has also typically performed at his best when he’s flying under the radar. And he seems to be on that path at the moment.

Von Berg, meanwhile, simply shows up at the biggest races. Fourth here in 2023. Third at Roth last year. Third in Kona last year. Second at Oceanside and third at a deep field at IRONMAN Texas. When it’s time to make a big paycheck, Von Berg cashes in. He’s my pick for top American. He’s my pick for the podium. And it would not shock me to see him win the damn thing, either. He’s right there. The question will be whether the opportunity presents itself.

Lastly: can we say how nice it is to have Iden back? We’ve seen flashes of brilliance from Iden, between a third in Oceanside and fourth at Frankfurt. There haven’t been the kind of dominant performances we were used to from him in that 2019-2022 timeframe, but it’s fair to say that he’s no longer lost in the hinterlands. Iden’s in that weird spot where any result from him would be unsurprising. He won? Not a shock. He DNF’d? OK. He finished top five? Sure! It’s all in play — including taking the top step.

Jonas Schomburg Takes a Top 5; Marten Van Riel Won’t

Jonas Schomburg takes second at Challenge Roth 2025. Photo: Kevin Mackinnon

Obviously we can’t claim these two to be the top 2024 Olympians to compete in 2025 — that honor will go to Mr. Blummenfelt. But both have had standout success “graduating” to long course racing. Van Riel, of course, took the inaugural T100 World Tour title. Schomburg, meanwhile, has primarily raced IRONMAN branded events.

Of the two, Schomburg has proven himself at the full-distance more consistently than Van Riel has. The two podium finishes this year include a sterling second at Roth. Van Riel, meanwhile, needed to finish second at South Africa to get himself here, then primarily went back to shorter distance events. That said, Van Riel has also been battling an ankle issue, compromising his lead up. We’ve seen athletes have great success with less run training (the old “there’s a fine line between fit and f*cked” adage seems at play). Both Tim O’Donnell and Ben Hoffman have credited strong successes at the IRONMAN World Championship to being forced not to do as much running in the build up to the event.

Still, my money’s on Schomburg. He was less than two minutes off the win in Roth, and he’s going to be a factor on early in the day.

Sam Laidlow Will Be a Factor, Until He Isn’t

Sam Laidlow (right) at today’s press conference. Photo: Kevin Mackinnon

Laidlow’s the greatest wildcard player here. He’s the defending champion on this course. He’s proven time and again that he can ride like his hair’s on fire and then run well enough. Perhaps the surprise in his Roth win was his running pedigree, only being out-split by Matt Hanson.

We know Laidlow’s typical world championship playbook: swim near the front, then get away on the bike. It worked in Kona in 2022 and here in 2023. It, of course, failed spectacularly last year. And it took a long time for Laidlow to recover from that effort. Then he raced two full distance races in three weeks, winning Roth and Leeds.

That throws a lot of red flags up for me. It’s a Lionel Sanders-esque play to go that hard this close to a world championship event. Between that, and knowing that Laidlow’s got one real card to play here, I think we’re more likely to see a Kona 2024 blow-up than we are a repeat of his glory here in 2023. (This is also where I am most likely to eat the most crow.)

Sam Long Will Bike and Run to a Paycheck

On paper, Long is out of his element at a full-distance event. He’s won one full distance race in the last four years, and that was a non-swim Chattanooga event. He was the final paycheck earner at the St. George world championship race, on a race course that suits him. His swim is even more exposed for these long course races, where he will likely be seven or eight minutes back of the lead pack.

The advantage I think Long has to work his way through the field here is where the climbing is. With a bulk of the hard climbing so early in the day, it should give Long his best opportunity to reel people in with his brute strength. With so much climbing, too, it should limit much of the chance for Long to wind up in a position foul situation on the bike, which derailed his 70.3 World Championship race in St. George.

Long has also been running well over the last year, with strong performances across T100, 70.3, and full distance events. I think a top 10 is well within his reach.

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