5 Bold Predictions for IRONMAN Texas

It’s time to fire up the old prediction machine, as the second full-distance race of the 2025 IRONMAN Pro Series is almost upon us. This one has been made slightly more complicated by the depth of field this year, as well as having the top two men across the finish line not here for wildly different reasons (Tomas Rodriguez Hernandez serving his doping suspension, and Patrick Lange withdrawing due to injury). As of now, 63 men and 27 women will vie for their share of the $175,000 prize pool.

As a reminder, that prize money breaks down as follows:

As always, the winners will also receive the maximum 5,000 points for the IRONMAN Pro Series — mission critical if you’re looking to be competitive on that front. With that in mind, here’s my bold predictions for Saturday’s race.

This is Rudy Von Berg’s Time to Shine

It’s crazy (to me, anyways) that this is Von Berg’s 10th professional season as a triathlete. He always seems to be included in “athletes with the potential to breakthrough” lists. Yet here we are, the 2023 IRONMAN Texas champion seemingly flying well under the radar despite finishing second to Lionel Sanders over in Oceanside, and after finishing on the podium at the IRONMAN World Championships this past year. Perhaps the only knock on his resume is that he hasn’t won an IRONMAN Pro Series event yet. Hard to hold that against him when he was mostly racing T100 last year.

But the longer the race, the more Von Berg shines. His last five full distance starts: third in Kona; third in Challenge Roth; won IRONMAN Florida; fourth in Nice; won IRONMAN Texas. He’s also shown that he can handle warm and humid conditions, which is what we’ll see on Saturday. And yet all the focus pre-race, even on IRONMAN’s website for featured starters, has been on Lange, Kristian Blummenfelt, and Gustav Iden. It’s time to put some respect on Von Berg’s name.

Top Norwegian: Blummenfelt

Iden got the better of Blummenfelt in Oceanside, which is a promising sign given Iden’s struggles since the 2022 season. Scratching beneath the surface of the result, though, and Blummenfelt appears to be the more on-form of the two. Blummenfelt’s result in Oceanside came down to his unfortunate flat tire, a result of a miscue on direction there. Blummenfelt, despite being well out of the race, wound up dropping a 1:07 half marathon on everyone — by far the fastest of the day, and a full six minutes faster than Iden’s run.

I think Blummenfelt won’t be able to put that kind of run together in Texas; he does not handle heat and humidity quite as well as some other athletes here, and I suspect he’s going to wind up pushing the bike pace given who else is in this field. Ultimately, I think Blummenfelt leads this race into T2, but cramps during the run to give the win to Von Berg. Iden comes home in the top 5 to earn one of the coveted Nice championship slots.

Matthews, Sodaro, Knibb Take Top Three (In That Order)

The women’s field is top-heavy, with three superstars primed for a showdown for supremacy. Kat Matthews, who raced just about anything and everything last year, kicked off her IRONMAN Pro Series crown with a win here in Texas. Her schedule is somewhat more subdued this year, with a pronounced focus on winning her first IRONMAN World Championship, and subsequently, take a perfect score in the Pro Series.

Taylor Knibb, meanwhile, is the dominant force at T100 and 70.3 racing. The playbook is simple: swim near the front, blitz the bike and build an insurmountable lead, and run well enough. It’s very similar to the way Daniela Ryf dominated the sport for a while, although Knibb is a better swimmer than Ryf was. But Knibb continues to struggle with nutrition at races longer than Olympic distance events. It was her undoing at her only other IRONMAN distance race to date (Kona 2023). And we should be seeing similar weather conditions on Saturday that we saw Knibb struggle with at that race on her way to fourth.

That’s part of the reason why I expect to see Chelsea Sodaro in front of Knibb by the midpoint of the run. The Texas course is a decent analog for what you see in Kona; non-wetsuit swim, windy bike, hot and humid run. Sodaro’s a capable, balanced athlete, who has done well in these kinds of conditions. With her bike situation settled, this feels like an opportunity for her to remind the world just how good she is — and that Knibb may still have some to learn about IRONMAN racing.

Handing Out the World Championship Slots

Because IRONMAN Texas is technically the North American Championship, as a regional championship event there are 5 slots for men and women on the line. Iden, Blummenfelt, and Sodaro have their past champion five-year exemptions to rely upon, so regardless of where they finish (and finishing is mission critical for them all), they don’t count in our calculus. Leon Chevalier and Chris Leiferman have also already qualified in Cozumel. That leaves four men’s slots and three women’s slots on the line, as Von Berg, Matthews, and Knibb will take theirs.

Let’s start with the women, which I think is harder to predict. Alice Alberts should be up there; she’s raced well in Texas the last two seasons (and with Penny Slater out due to a respiratory infection, that should confirm a slot). I think Haley Chura‘s consistency on the swim and run will help offset her bike; the flatter ride should also help out with that. And lastly, I’ll take Danielle Lewis; her swim deficit is likely to be quite large, but I think she can run her way into place by the time slots are awarded.

Now for the men. Four slots, with far too many names to put them into. Looking at the list, you have Kristian Høgenhaug, Trevor Foley, Ben Kanute, Matthew Marquardt, Cam Wurf, Matt Hanson, Antonio Benito Lopez, Daniel Bækkegård, and Robert Kallin as your top class contenders for those slots. There’s also what hopes to be a feel-good story for Robert Wilkowiecki after recovering from heart surgery in 2024. Too many good athletes, so little time.

I do think there’s something to be said for past performances in Texas or Hawaii; either you can handle heat and humidity or you can’t. I think someone like Foley would have shown himself to be capable of that had he not eaten it in the closing miles of the bike in Hawaii this past year; I like him for the final spot on the podium this weekend. Høgenhaug had a strong top 10 finish in Hawaii last year, and he generally starts strong on the season. And give me Wurf for the final slot; for a guy that has seemingly had no luck at all to start his year, a slot for Nice sure would be nice.

Take the Under on Called Drafting Penalties

Yeah, yeah, I know; they’re not technically “drafting penalties,” they’re “position fouls.” Whatever you’d like to call them, there’s one giant problem with enforcing penalties (and ensuring proper broadcast footage) on this course: congestion. With the multiple loops on the Hardy Toll Road and age-group traffic on course, it gets a little tight out there. We’ve seen collisions between pro athletes and age groupers here before, and given the spacing and all else out there, it wouldn’t be shocking to see some Race Ranger blinking lights not necessarily getting the attention that you might expect.

I’ve put the over/under at called position foul penalties for the combined pro race at 4.5. And I’d almost be willing to put our entire mortgage on the under. Almost…

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