2025 Men’s IRONMAN World Championship Nice Field Announced

Patrick Lange and Sam Laidlow at the finish of the 2023 IRONMAN World Championship Nice. Photo: Donald Miralle for IRONMAN

We already had a pretty good idea of who would be competing at this year’s men’s IRONMAN World Championship in Nice, so today’s release of the bib list for the race really serves as a signal as to has dropped out of the race more than anything. Still, it’s fun to see the finalized list of those who have confirmed their attendance for the final full-distance IRONMAN World Championship in Nice, and begin our countdown to the race.

Who’s Out

Avid triathlon fans will have noticed that Lionel Sanders announced (via YouTube) he was out a few days ago – he’s still recovering from the sacral stress fracture that sidelined him earlier this year. Other men who have qualified who won’t be in Nice include Aussie Sam Appleton, Germany’s Johannes Vogel (who had announced last month that he was injured and done for the season) and Austria’s Michael Weiss. Marten Van Riel remains on the start list, although he’s still recovering from an ankle injury and has only just been able to start running, according to his social media post below.

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A post shared by Marten Van Riel (@martenvanriel)

Pre-Race Favorites

Heading into the race in Nice one has to imagine that Kristian Blummenfelt arrives as the favorite after wins earlier this year in Texas and Frankfurt, but the list of contenders is very long. Defending world champ Patrick Lange finished second the last time the men competed in Nice, while the last world championship winner on the Côte d’Azur, Sam Laidlow, has surged back into winning form with wins at Challenge Roth and IRONMAN Leeds. Magnus Ditlev finished third in Nice two years ago, then took second to Lange in Kona last year and has focussed his year on taking the world title. He started the year off with a bang with a win in South Africa, but was well back at 70.3 St. George (12th) and Frankfurt (eighth).

Rudy Von Berg was fourth in Nice two years ago, then took third in Kona last year. Is the American ready to contend for the win on “somewhat” home turf? (He grew up in the region.) France’s Leon Chevalier finished fifth in Nice two years ago, then was fourth last year in Kona. Will he continue his move up the finish list to the podium in 2025? Those are just a few of the potential men’s winners, too – the spectacular bike course and flat, fast run in Nice offer some unique dynamics for the race.

IRONMAN Pro Series

Originally launched as a way to compete with the PTO’s T100 Triathlon World Tour, the IRONMAN Pro Series has been a resounding success, with many of the sport’s to full-distance stars focusing their season around a top finish in the standings. Heading into Nice, nine of the top 10 in the series’ standings (Braden Currie didn’t nail a spot for Nice) are in the field.

While Chevalier sits at the top of the standings right now, American Matthew Marquardt, sitting in second, still has a 70.3 race to add to his total (to go along with his Cairns and Lake Placid wins), putting him in an excellent position at this point. Blummenfelt, currently in third, is in an even better position as he has a third full-distance race to add to his tally. Blummenfelt’s countrymen Casper Stormes and Gustav Iden are in a similar position – both have a full-distance race to add to their points total.

Speaking of Norwegians …

We posted a pair of stories about a couple of the “unknown” Norwegians competing in Nice. There are five in the field, including 2021 champ (St. George) Blummenfelt and 2022 Kona champ Iden, who appears to be building back to the form that saw him take a pair of 70.3 world titles (one in Nice in 2019) and the world title. Stormes is relatively new to the long-distance scene, but enjoyed draft-legal success and a pair of top-five full-distance finishes this year, so is a bit more well known in tri circles. The other two are Kristian Grue and Jon Breivold, who we featured on the site this week.

For a country of 4.5 million, having five men on the start list is impressive.

Other countries with a number of athletes competing include:

• Germany with nine athletes
• The United States with seven
• Denmark, Great Britain and France with four

Olympian to IRONMAN World Championship contender?

Jonas Schomburg. Photo: Kevin Mackinnon

Looking to join Blummenfelt on the “Olympics one year world championship title the next” (although he won gold in Tokyo, of course!) are the afore-mentioned Van Riel and Germany’s Jonas Schomburg. The German followed WTCS Abu Dhabi up with a third-place finish at IRONMAN South Africa, then ended up having to drop out of the IRONMAN European Championship with handlebar issues. A week later he finished second to Laidlow at Challenge Roth, which makes him a very viable contender for the title in Nice.

Van Riel can’t buy a break on this IRONMAN thing. Last year, while biking at the front of the race in Cozumel, the Belgian star hit a girl. Luckily enough the girl was OK, as was Van Riel, but he had to wait for roughly 20 minutes to fill out a police report and would eventually finish seventh in the race, which meant he had to do another qualifying race this year – he would finish second to Ditlev in South Africa. He managed to balance all that out with T100 racing as he looked to defend his world title in that series from last year. Then came the ankle injury, which has put a big question mark next to his participation in the race in Nice.

We’ll be in Nice during race week to provide lots of coverage. Here’s the start list for this year’s race:

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