Here are the Top 10 finishers from the men’s 2024 Ironman World Championship in Kona and others who played an important role as the race progressed:

Rank	Name	Nation	Swim	Bike	Run	Time	Diff to exp.	Prize Money
1	Patrick Lange	GER	00:47:09 (4)	04:06:22 (15)	02:37:34 (1)	07:35:53	-12:47	US$ 125,000
2	Magnus Ditlev	DEN	00:48:18 (24)	04:02:52 (4)	02:46:10 (4)	07:43:39	-03:43	US$ 65,000
3	Rudy von Berg	USA	00:47:18 (11)	04:05:49 (12)	02:48:11 (6)	07:46:00	-08:56	US$ 45,000
4	Leon Chevalier	FRA	00:50:43 (40)	04:01:38 (2)	02:49:56 (8)	07:46:54	-12:42	US$ 25,000
5	Menno Koolhaas	NED	00:47:02 (1)	04:05:02 (9)	02:50:02 (9)	07:47:22	-06:52	US$ 20,000
6	Gregory Barnaby	ITA	00:47:12 (5)	04:06:08 (14)	02:50:33 (11)	07:48:22	-03:28	US$ 18,000
7	Cameron Wurf	AUS	00:52:25 (49)	04:03:59 (7)	02:50:11 (10)	07:51:26	-09:32	US$ 15,000
8	Kieran Lindars	GBR	00:47:12 (5)	04:08:28 (19)	02:51:49 (12)	07:51:55	-09:38	US$ 13,000
9	Kristian Hogenhaug	DEN	00:48:24 (26)	04:03:32 (6)	02:57:09 (19)	07:53:37	-05:57	US$ 12,000
10	Matt Hanson	USA	00:50:37 (34)	04:14:11 (32)	02:45:25 (2)	07:54:50	-07:00	US$ 11,000
15	Matthew Marquardt	USA	00:47:18 (11)	04:04:55 (8)	03:01:43 (24)	07:58:43	05:37	US$ 3,000
18	Sam Laidlow	FRA	00:47:06 (2)	03:57:22 (1)	03:12:49 (31)	08:02:01	07:29
23	Robert Kallin	SWE	00:48:22 (25)	04:01:44 (3)	03:12:13 (29)	08:07:25	04:27
35	Kristian Blummenfelt	NOR	00:47:21 (14)	04:05:47 (11)	03:32:04 (38)	08:29:58	50:26
	Trevor Foley	USA	00:55:14 (52)	04:03:11 (5)		DNF
	Gustav Iden	NOR	00:50:34 (31)	04:12:59 (30)		DNF

You can find the full results in my Kona Results post.

The following graph shows how the race developed (click for a hi-res version):

Let’s start with a summary of the race:

• There wasn’t much separation in the swim. Most of the field stayed together in the first half out to the boats at the turnaround. Then Sam Laidlow pushed the pace for a bit, and bike powerhouses such as Magnus Ditlev, Robert Kallin or Kristian Hogenhaug were dropped. A lead group of 22 athletes with almost all the remaining favorites reached T1 within 26 seconds.
• From the start of the bike, Sam Laidlow pushed the pace and rode away from the field. It took Magnus about 10 miles to erase his swim deficit of 1:16; by the time he bridged up to the big group, Sam was already two minutes ahead.
• After 25 miles, Magnus had ridden through the chase group. Everyone thought this was a significant move, creating chaotic situations as no one wanted to let Magnus ride away. However, the only one able to match Magnus’ pace was Kristian Blummenfelt, but it didn’t take long before he was dropped, vomiting several times. By the turn in Hawi (shortly before 60 miles), Sam had built a lead of 2:30 to Magnus. Kristian had fallen back into the big group which was almost five minutes behind Sam.
• Sam continued to ride hard in the second half of the bike, riding the first sub-4 hour bike split in Kona and setting a new bike course record of 3:57:22. The group couldn’t make up any time to Sam. After 80 miles, Robert Kallin was able to ride away from the big group; a bit later it was Kristian Hogenhaug. After 90 miles, Magnus seemed in problems, and Robert was able to overtake him shortly before T2.
• Once the run started, Patrick Lange began with an extra spring in his step; he was clearly the fastest runner on the course. After four miles he already moved into second place, reducing his gap to Sam’s from nine minutes in T2 down to seven minutes. When the wheels came off Sam’s marathon after the climb on Palani Road, Patrick took the lead on the Queen K after eleven miles. Sam fell back to eighteenth place with a 3:12 run split. After a 2:37 marathon, Patrick became the 2024 Ironman World Champion, also setting a new 7:35 course record. 
• Magnus almost ended his race in T2 but after taking some time decided to try at least the section on Ali’i. From tenth place, he started to move forward in the field, feeling not quite as bad as he had at the end of the bike. Coming out of the Energy Lab, he was able to reclaim second place and held on to it until the finish. Third place went to Rudy von Berg and fourth to Leon Chevalier.

Photo: The top finishers at the post-race press conference. LTR: Leon Chevalier (4th), Magnus Ditlev (2nd), Patrick Lange (winner), Rudy von Berg (3rd), and Menno Koolhaas (5th). Photo supplied by Ironman.

Interestingly, second to fifth from Nice last year finished first to fourth in the same order in Kona. Even if the courses in Nice and Kona seem quite different and might favor different athletes, it hasn’t shown up in the results – at least when looking at the most recent races.

The rest of this post is a closer look at the leading athletes and how their days unfolded.

Ironman World Champion: Patrick Lange

Patrick Lange leveraged his fantastic run to win his third World Championship title:

An important part of Patrick’s great result was his swim. In past races, he was often in the second swim group, starting the bike behind the race favorites. At last year’s World Championships in Nice he was just over a minute behind Sam Laidlow and others in T1; at this year’s IM Frankfurt he was almost four minutes behind the lead group with Kristian Blummenfelt. At this year’s swim in Kona, he was always close to the front in the lead group, making sure not to get dropped. On the return leg, he was even leading the race in the swim for a minute! He was fourth out of the water, just three seconds behind Sam Laidlow and twelve seconds ahead of Kristian Blummenfelt. His good swim meant that instead of being on his own and isolated on the bike, he was riding with the lead group right out of T1. As expected, he didn’t try to ride with Sam but was always close to the front of the chase group. After 25 miles, Magnus had ridden through the chase group and started to ride away from them. Kristian tried to go with Magnus but fell back into the group half an hour later – that must have been a confidence builder for Patrick. At the turn in Hawi, he was 13th, just seconds behind third place. He was five minutes behind Sam in the lead and two and a half minutes behind Magnus in second place. Would he be able to keep the gap to them manageable in the second half? In Nice, he had run more than eight minutes into them. Would someone else ride away from him? 

For most of the ride back to Kona, things were pretty calm in the chase group. The group finally fell apart in the last ten miles, and Patrick lost about a minute, saving his legs for the run. His 4:06 bike split was his fastest ever on the Ironman distance, about ten minutes quicker than when he won in 2018 in similarly fast conditions. He entered T2 in 14th place, 9:07 behind Sam but only two minutes behind Magnus in third place. A podium finish was definitely in the cards for Patrick, and coming out of transition he left no doubt that he was going to be the fastest runner. By the turn on Ali’i, less than four miles into the run, he had already stormed into second place, running about two minutes faster than anyone else at the front of the race. Sam was still seven minutes ahead – so far Patrick was about 30 seconds quicker per mile, and he should be able to catch him within the next 14 miles, possibly somewhere in the almost mythical Energy Lab. But after the climb on Palani, the gap started to shrink very quickly. Just after mile 11, Patrick flew by Sam who was in deep distress. Patrick had run the first half of the marathon in about 1:17:13, almost two minutes faster than when Gustav Iden set the run course record in 2022. But while Gustav had to run the second half hard in order to catch Sam Laidlow, Patrick was able to shift into “risk-reduction mode.” That’s probably why he missed Gustav’s run course record, but Patrick’s marathon of 2:37:33 was still eight minutes quicker than anyone else in the field. You have to go back a long time for a male athlete who was more dominant in the Kona run – probably to 1984 when Dave Scott’s 2:53 marathon was more than 10 minutes quicker than the second-best run split. Crossing the line in 7:35:53, Patrick set a new overall course record.

Photo: Patrick celebrating his third Kona title (supplied by Ironman).

Second Place: Magnus Ditlev

After recovering from problems at the end of the bike, Magnus rallied to claim second place:

Magnus’ day didn’t start as he had hoped for. In most of his 2024 races, he had been able to swim with the lead group, most notably in his win at Challenge Roth. He seemed okay in the “out-leg,” hanging on the lead swim group. But when Sam Laidlow pushed the pace, Magnus fell back, eventually reaching T1 1:15 behind the lead, similar to the last World Championships in Nice (1:29) or Kona 2022 (1:34). Nothing unusual for Magnus and probably one of the scenarios he thought through before the race, but it gave Sam Laidlow the chance to ride off the front before Magnus was able to join the lead group, quite similar to how the race unfolded in Nice last year. Magnus did what he could do in this race situation: Close the gap to the lead group, then ride through them and build a gap. With all the athletes he had to overtake, he lost a bit more time to Sam in the opening miles. By mile 25 he reached the end of the big group, and a lot of athletes tried to go with him, leading to a bit of chaos with three or more athletes trying to overtake others at the same time. There were quite a few dodgy scenes and a fair number of RaceRangers flashing red, but no penalties were assessed. When Magnus rode off the front a bit later, only one athlete was able to follow him, but Kristian Blummenfelt’s stomach quickly protested his effort, and soon Magnus was riding on his own. He was able to shrink Sam’s lead slightly, from 2:21 behind at mile 15 he got as close as 1:40 at mile 42. But then the gap started to grow again. At the turn in Hawi, Magnus was 2:31 back, and it seemed more and more unlikely that he’d be able to ride up to Sam.

Photo: Magnus riding back to Kona. (Credit for this and all the following pictures: Harald Kohlhaas for triathlonpresse.de)

After 90 miles, Magnus even seemed to be in trouble: He lost more time to Sam, and the chase group behind him started to make up time to him. Robert Kallin rode away from the big group and caught Magnus a few miles before T2. Magnus seemed cooked, and in T2 he thought about ending his race right there. But after one of the slowest T2s of the whole field, he decided to try at least the run on Ali’i. Coming out of transition, he had dropped to seventh place, and with the slow pace he was able to run, he fell back even further to tenth place. But he no longer felt quite as bad, was able to run with those around him and even started to gain a spot here and there. In the climb up Palani, he was already in seventh place with two more athletes just in front of him. At the half-marathon mark, he had even climbed back into the podium positions. At the end of the Energy Lab, he could even overtake a struggling Leon Chevalier to move into second place. No one else was able to challenge him in the remaining miles back into town, and after an up-and-down race, Magnus ran a 2:46 marathon to finish in second place.

Third Place: Rudy von Berg

Rudy von Berg finished third, claiming the first US podium since Tim O’Donnell in 2019:

Rudy swam in the first big group, reaching T1 just 16 seconds behind the leader. He didn’t follow Sam Laidlow or Magnus Ditlev when they took off, but he was consistently close to the front of the big group on the climb to Hawi. He also kept his powder dry in the descent after the turn and the ride back to Hawi, reaching T2 in 12th place, nine minutes behind the leader but only two minutes behind third place. 

After a fast transition, he started the run 30 seconds ahead of Patrick, but Patrick quickly overtook him, and at the turn on Ali’i after four miles  Rudy was still in 12th place. But towards the end of Ali’i it became clear that Rudy could hold his pace while others had gone out too quickly, and he slowly started to move through the field. After ten miles he was eighth, and only Patrick was running significantly faster. At the turn in the Energy Lab after 16 miles, he had moved into fourth place. The three athletes in front of him – Patrick, Leon and Magnus – had faster run splits, and it seemed unlikely that he’d be able to run 90 seconds into Leon or 45 seconds into Magnus in the remaining ten miles. Would he have to settle for fourth (same position as in Nice a year ago), or would he even be caught by one of the runners behind?

The last position changes on the podium occurred in the next miles in the Energy Lab: Leon Chevalier had heat problems and was forced to slow down, and Rudy overtook him to move into third place. After that, he continued to run his pace, and with a 2:48 finished in third place, his first Ironman World Championship podium.

Fourth Place: Leon Chevalier

This year, Leon Chevalier was the top French finisher in fourth place:

As is typical for him, he quickly fell out of the lead group in the swim, losing almost four minutes before T1. That was better than two years ago when he was five minutes back, but he still had slightly bigger gap than in Nice where he was 3:21 back in T1. Another drawback for him: The last two years he had some good company for the bike with Cam Wurf; this year Cam was even further back. But Leon has the experience to ride well on his own with the patience that Kona so often rewards. Riding on his own and without any data (his Garmin wouldn’t turn on) was challenging: On the Queen K he thought he was only a minute or so behind the big group, but at the turn in Hawi he was still about three minutes behind in 22nd place. He continued to ride at his own steady pace, making up more and more time and finally catching the chase group after 95 miles. 

Seeing Patrick and Kristian in the group, he knew he’d have to put in another surge to improve his chances for a good finish. In the remaining miles, Leon was able to shatter the chase group, posting the second-best bike split and reaching T2 in sixth place, less than a minute behind the podium spots. Even running “as easy as possible,” he ran well in the first section next to the Ocean, letting Patrick go but running at the front of the loose group of runners behind him. After Palani, he moved into third place, passing Menno Koolhaas and putting a minute between them at 10 miles. At the turn in the Energy Lab, Leon was even in second place, thinking now would be the time to start pushing the pace. It’s hard to tell if it was rushing through aid stations or the famously hot conditions in the Energy Lab, but he began to have heat problems and had to walk a few times, taking extra time to cool down as much as possible in the aid stations. By mile 21, he had fallen back to fifth place but just a few steps behind Menno Koolhaas in fourth (see photo in the next section). Leon recovered a bit and then re-passed Menno, but he couldn’t afford to let up as Menno was never more than 40 seconds behind. After the race, Leon said how hard he pushed in the final 10k, but Rudy in front of him and Menno just behind pushed just as hard. Across the line in fourth, Leon was less than a minute behind Rudy in third and only 28 seconds ahead of Menno.

Fifth Place: Menno Koolhaas

Menno Koolhaas was first out of the water, and he also had a good bike and run to finish in fifth place:

In the first half of the swim, Menno had the lead for a good part, but he was dragging around a big group behind him. At the turn boats, Sam Laidlow took the lead for a few minutes, stretching out the field and shaking off a few strong bikers. Menno stayed at the front of that group, and when Sam took things a bit easier, he was back at the front and led the field into T1. On the bike, he didn’t follow Sam Laidlow when he went off the front, but again he was in the big group, sometimes in the lead but more often a few spots back. He didn’t go with the attacks of Magnus or Robert, but when the big group fell apart in the final miles of the bike, he was again at the sharp end. He reached T2 eight minutes behind the lead in sixth place. 

Menno ran well in the early parts of the marathon; at the turn on Ali’i he was third. On the Queen K, he fell back to fifth place, but after exiting the Energy Lab he was in a close battle with Leon for fourth place.

Even though Leon had some heat issues, he was still able to re-pass Menno, but no one else coming from behind was able to challenge Menno who crossed the line in fifth place. He was the first male Dutch athlete in the Top 10 for 25 years. (Before him, the last one was Frank Heldoorn who finished seventh in 1999.)

Sixth Place: Gregory Barnaby

Last year in Nice, Gregory Barnaby was eighth in Nice, the first Italian athlete in the Top 10 at the Ironman World Championships. This year, he improved two more places and finished sixth:

Gregory and Menno were just a few seconds apart for the swim and the bike. Typically, Gregory was a bit further back in the group, reaching T2 in tenth place. After a quick transition, he started the run in eighth place, just 30 seconds behind Menno. Gregory approached the run on Ali’i and the first part on the Queen K more conservatively than others in the group he rode with. By mile 11, he had slowly fallen back to eleventh, running slower than anyone in front of him. But while others struggled in the Energy Lab, he was able to keep his steady pace. By mile 16 he was back in sixth place. 

Ahead of him, Menno was in fifth, and Gregory had been able to close the gap to him within seven miles from 2:24 down to 1:11. In that section, Menno was in a close fight for fourth with Leon – would anyone run into problems in the final miles of running in the Kona heat? But then none of them cracked, and Gregory crossed the line in sixth place, still 1:11 behind Menno in fifth place.

Seventh Place: Cameron Wurf

Even with a slower than usual swim, Cam Wurf was still able to finish in seventh place:

Cam had the slowest swim of the athletes eventually finishing in the Top 10. He exited the water in 49th place, 5:23 behind the leaders. This was more than in Nice 2023 (3:21) and Kona 2022 (4:36). Was this already the end of his Kona goals?

On the bike, he executed a patient plan, obviously not aware of the torrid pace at the front. He still rode a 4:03:59 bike split, the sixth-best of the day and more than five minutes faster than what he rode in 2022. 

Last year in Nice, Cam was able to ride through most of the field and to reach T2 in fourth place. This year in Kona he was only able to start the run in 18th place, more than three minutes out of the Top 10. At previous World Championships, he struggled to break three hours; his best was a 2:54:26 from Kona 2022. This year, Cam ran a solid 2:50:11, allowing him to move into the Top 10 shortly after the half-marathon mark. He was able to overtake a few more athletes in the second half and after a close fight with Kieran Lindars, Cam crossed the line in seventh place.

Eighth Place: Kieran Lindars

In his first World Championship, Kieran Lindars finished in eighth place:

Kieran is another of the athletes who swam in the big group. After a quick transition, he was even first on the bike and led for a few seconds before Sam Laidlow went to the front. Kieran then rode with the big bike group, but he seemed to have to work hard to stay with them, often riding towards the end where the accordion effect makes the ride more “surgy” and probably a bit harder. He then seemed to be in trouble when he fell behind the group in the last 20 miles, probably when the pace picked up a bit with Leon Chevalier having finally caught up to the group. Kieran lost almost two minutes in the final section before T2.

But when he started the run, he was able to move from 15th out of T2 into the Top 10 in the first ten miles, catching those who may have worked too hard on the bike. After the Energy Lab he was in seventh place before getting caught by Cam Wurf at mile 23. The two were just seconds apart in the last few miles; in the end Kieran crossed the line in eighth place, just twenty second behind Cam.

Ninth Place: Kristian Hogenhaug

With a ninth place finish, Kristian Hogenhaug was able to get his first Top 10 in the Ironman World Championships:

Kristian was one of the strong bikers such as Magnus Ditlev or Robert Kallin who fell out of the front group in the second half of the swim. Into T1, he was 26th, just 1:22 behind the leaders. He started the ride with Magnus Ditlev, but he let Magnus go shortly before reaching the big group. While Magnus rode through the group, Kristian was content to ride with them. But after three and a half hours of racing, he decided to use his bike strength in the last 25 miles and surged away from the big group, posting the fifth-best bike split of the day.

Kristian started the run in third place but it was unlikely that he’d be able to hold on for a podium spot. But he was able to find a solid pace that he’d be able to keep up for the whole marathon, cooling down with a special ice roll around his neck. As expected, he fell back a few spots, but with a 2:57 marathon he ran more than 13 minutes quicker than ever before in Kona and finished ninth, keeping close to Cam and Kieran in front of him.

Tenth Place: Matt Hanson

With the second best marathon of the day, Matt Hanson gained 20 spots on the run and finished tenth:

For the first five hours of the race, there wasn’t much attention on Matt. He was 3:34 behind after the swim and started the bike with Leon Chevalier. However, while Leon was able to bridge up to the big group in the latter stages of the bike, Matt continued to lose time. He was more than twelve minutes behind 10th in T2, but then he was only slightly slower than Patrick Lange in the first part of the run and started to move through the field. At the climb on Palani, he was 26th; at the turn in the Energy Lab he had already climbed into 14th, only another four minutes outside the Top 10. 

Matt continued to run well and moved into tenth place 5k from the finish line. 2:45:25 was his best Kona marathon, and tenth place is his best finish at an Ironman World Championship.

T2 Leaders: Sam Laidlow and Robert Kallin

Coming into T2, Sam Laidlow and Robert Kallin were leading at the front of the field, but then both didn’t have a good marathon:

For the first six hours, Sam Laidlow was at the front of the race. He started to make things hard after the turnaround in the swim when he pushed the pace, likely dropping a few favorites from the lead group. Coming up the steps into T1, he was just a half-step behind Menno Koolhaas. In Nice, he lost some time in T1 putting on his aero guards; in Kona he didn’t waste any time, stormed through T1, put on his helmet (which he prepared as an ice bucket) and then went straight to the front of the race. Just two miles into the bike leg, he was 15 seconds ahead of the chasers; by mile five it was already a minute. When Magnus passed the group at mile 25, Sam’s lead was around two minutes. He further pushed the pace in the climb to Hawi, and made the turn after 2:05:51, more than nine minutes quicker than when he set the bike course record in 2022 (2:14:56). As seems to be the rule for Kona, no one was able to close the gap in the second half of the bike – and it was even Magnus who was in trouble towards T2. Riding into T2, Sam had a lead of almost six minutes.

With a 3:57:22, Sam had set a new fastest bike time, posting the first sub-4 bike in Kona. His 2024 return leg was two minutes slower than in 2022 – was that an effect of the conditions or a first sign of having ridden a bit too hard? 

Sam had a decent run in 2022, and along the Ocean he almost exactly matched that pace in 2024: At the turn on Ali’i, he ran 22:33 (after 22:35 in 2022), and there was the same picture at the climb on Palani (40:32 vs. 40:34 in 2022). But Patrick Lange was now within 6 minutes, and it seemed unlikely that Sam would be able to hold on to the lead all the way to the finish. Then things developed quickly: In the rolling hills on the Queen K, Sam started to slow down and even had to walk, and Patrick quickly closed the gap, taking the lead even before the half-marathon mark. After that, things went further downhill for Sam. With a 3:12 marathon, he finished in 18th place, at least making his bike course record official.

Sam wasn’t able to make his bike attack stick. He probably also made others ride a bit harder than they may have wanted: Magnus Ditlev tried to follow him but then struggled towards the end of the bike (making a somewhat miraculous recovery on the run), Kristian Blummenfelt tried to follow Magnus but wasn’t able to when his stomach rebelled. This re-confirms the old “Kona Rule” that you can’t win Kona on the bike but need to leave enough in the tank for a good run. 

Behind Sam Laidlow, Robert Kallin was second into T2. He lost 1:20 in the swim, just a few seconds more than Magnus. At the start of the bike, he wasn’t quite able to stay with Magnus, losing 30 seconds in the first 5 miles. It then took him until the climb to Hawi to catch the big group, and in the downhill after Hawi he started to push the pace. At mile 80, he could ride off the front of the group, moving into second place when Magnus began to lose power. At the end of the bike, he was 6 minutes behind leader Sam Laidlow but also almost two minutes ahead of the big group. But he was overwhelmed by the many good runners behind him, and he started to move backwards even before the turn on Ali’i. With a 3:12 marathon (just a few seconds quicker than Sam Laidlow), he fell back to 23rd across the finish line.

Not quite the run they were looking for: Matthew Marquardt and Kristian Blummenfelt

It is safe to say that Matt Marquardt and Kristian Blummenfelt were looking for more than a 15th and 35th place:

Both swam in the lead group in the swim, reaching T1 in 11th and 14th place, just seconds behind swim leader Menno Koolhaas. After Sam Laidlow had ridden off the front, Matthew Marquardt was leading the chase group but couldn’t keep Sam from building a solid lead. Matt continued to ride well, and in the last miles of the bike ride formed an alliance with Leon to ride off the front of the big bike group. He started the run in fifth, holding on to that position for most of the section along Ali’i Drive. But once he was on the rolling hills on the Queen K, he started to fall back. By the turn in the Energy Lab, he had dropped out of the Top 10. Crossing the line with a 3:01 marathon, he was just able to hold on to 15th place, the last place in the money.

Kristian Blummenfelt stepped into the spotlight after 25 miles when he was the only one trying to follow Magnus Ditlev on his (presumed) way to the front. After a few miles of staying with Magnus, the broadcast showed Kristian vomiting a number of times, leaving the contents of his stomach and all the calories on the side of the road. After the race he said his stomach was fine but something was irritating his throat. Regardless of the cause, he had to fall back into the big group and try to catch up on calories. Of course that left a big question mark about the rest of his race, but he had thrown up in Frankfurt, too, and was still able to run a 2:32 there. Kristian was able to ride with the big group, starting the run in tenth place. On Ali’i, he ran a good pace and moved into fifth place. But after the climb on Palani, he ran out of steam, and “it was a long final 30k” for him. He walk-jogged to a 3:32 marathon, finishing a disappointing 35th. 

DNFs: Trevor Foley and Gustav Iden

Trevor Foley and Gustav Iden had disappointing DNFs:

Trevor Foley was one of the last athletes into T1; he was 52nd out of 54 starters and more than eight minutes behind the leader. But then he had a great bike leg, riding the last miles with Cam Wurf. At the last bike timing mat half a mile before T2, he had the second fastest bike split and had moved ahead in the field to 19th place. With his typically good run, a Top 10 finish still seemed possible. But then, as he wrote on Instagram, “I went handle bars over and hit my head, cut up my back & broke my [bars and bike].” He walked into T2 but had to call it a day. He still writes that “one positive I learned from today though, I truly believe I CAN win this race one day!”

Whenever Gustav Iden was interviewed before the race about his chances, he quickly pointed out that doing well would be a surprise to him – and a disappointment about what he believed others were capable of. Race day showed that he still has a lot of ground to make up before racing at his 2022 level. After swimming in the lead group in 2022, this year he was three and a half minutes behind after the swim. Then he lost about 30 seconds in transition to the athletes he swam with. For a while, he was able to make up some ground on the bike and bridged up to Leon Chevalier but then was quickly dropped again. Soon after, he received a one-minute littering penalty and had to ride on his own, losing more and more time. In T2, he was in 31st, twenty minutes behind the lead. He lost more ground in the early parts of the run and DNF’d after about ten miles.