Podcast: IRONMAN Champion Matthew Marquardt Talks Drafting Rules, 2025 Results and More
This week’s episode of The Slowtwitch Podcast features guest Matthew Marquardt, a professional IRONMAN triathlete who is so much more than just a swimmer, cyclist and runner. If you’re not familiar with Marquardt, this episode of the podcast will be a great introduction to him and his wildly busy life.
For most people, training to be a top pro on the IRONMAN circuit is a full-time job, but Marquardt manages to fit so much more into his schedule, including medical school and charity work. Here’s a little teaser of what you can hear from Marquardt in this episode, but after reading, do yourself a favour and listen to him tell you about his life himself.
Finding Triathlon
As you’ll hear on The Slowtwitch Podcast, Marquardt did a lot of sports growing up. He played soccer and lacrosse, he swam, he ran track and field. As he was going into high school, he says, it became apparent that swimming was the sport that would get him farthest, so he shifted focus to his time in the pool.
That dedication paid off, as Marquardt earned a spot on the swim team at Princeton University, where he specialized in butterfly and backstroke. He swam for Princeton for several seasons, but his last year of racing was cancelled due to COVID-19. Looking for another challenge, he decided to try triathlon, jumping straight to the 70.3 distance.
Marquardt found immediate success in triathlon. In just his second season in the sport (in 2022), he not only competed at the IRONMAN and IRONMAN 70.3 World Championships, but he won an age group world title in Kona and finished third less than a month later at 70.3 Worlds in St. George, Utah.
The next season, Marquardt turned pro, and he hasn’t slowed down. He finished third at IRONMAN Texas and 11th at the IRONMAN World Championship in his first year as a pro. The next season, he recorded multiple IRONMAN podium finishes and placed 15th with a sub-eight-hour showing in Kona.
The 2025 season was his best to date. After starting the year with a pair of disappointing results in Texas and St. George, he won IRONMAN Cairns and IRONMAN Lake Placid. He wrapped up his year with an eighth-place finish at the IRONMAN World Championship in Nice, France — just days before he was due to start his med school residency back home in the U.S.
Balancing School and Triathlon
Most triathletes would take a few days — maybe even a week — to decompress and celebrate after a career-best performance at the world championships. Marquardt never had that option, though, as he had only a few days to recover from his top-10 result in Nice before he started residency at Ohio State University.
Marquardt has plans to become a surgeon and to specialize in head and neck cancers. As he says on the podcast, he has been fortunate enough to take some time off from med school so that he can pursue IRONMAN racing, but for the most part, he has had to juggle both at once.
Marquardt trains about 25 hours each week, and he says where he fits sessions into his schedule is really a play-it-by-ear sort of deal. His coach gives him his workouts for the week, and he slots them in wherever he can between shifts at the hospital.
Giving Back
Triathlon training and medical school would be way more than enough for most people, but as you’ll find out on the podcast, Marquardt has one more dedicated pursuit: charity work. Marquardt says he developed a passion for charity work and fundraising after a childhood friend of his was diagnosed with cancer while they were in high school. Since then, Marquardt has raised tens of thousands of dollars for cancer research.
He works closely with Pelotonia, an annual bike ride fundraiser that raises money for The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center. Marquardt has raised more than $32,000 for Pelotonia himself since 2022, adding to the more than $300 million that the organization has raised since the first ride in 2009. (Click here to learn more about Pelotonia.)
This year, Marquardt is set to participate in another ride for charity to raise money for the IRONMAN Foundation. This ride is a bit longer than most fundraising events, as Marquardt will be tackling Cape Epic — an eight-day, 400-mile mountain bike race in South Africa. He is aiming to raise $30,000 (and the IRONMAN Foundation team as a whole hopes to raise $150,000), all of which will go toward swim programming for children.
The Podcast
This episode of The Slowtwitch Podcast is one you will not want to miss. Listening to Marquardt talk about his incredibly busy schedule will inspire you to do more, whether that’s in your work, in your training or in charity.
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Photos:
Top, Bottom: Kevin Mackinnon
Middle: Hector Vivas/Getty Images for IRONMAN
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