We Noticed: IRONMAN Returns to St. Pölten, BMC Pro Team and BMC Part Ways, Flo Cycling Closes
Challenge St. Pölten in 2023. Photo: Jose Luis Hourcade
From 2007 to 2019 IRONMAN 70.3 St. Pölten was one of Europes most spectacular and popular 70.3 races. (It was also the first 70.3 race in Austria, put on by “Triangle Events,” the group that began by organizing IRONMAN Austria in 1999, then added France (2002 – the event would move to Nice in 2005) and South Africa (2003) to their portfolio. Once the 70.3 series started up, Triangle Events would add half-distance races in Monaco, South Africa and St. Pölten.
The St. Pölten race was renowned for its two-lake swim and the scenic course that “encircles the World Heritage Site of ‘Wachau’ and downtown of one of the oldest cities in Austria.”
In 2019, though, the race organizers announced that the event would join the Challenge Family series after that year’s race. In a release, organizers explained the move:
‘We are Triathlon’ is the chosen motto of Challenge St Pölten. [Event organiser] BESTZEIT has been providing the best possible event organisation in St Pölten for the last 13 years. For us, triathlon means more than just sport and above all, more than just business. For us, triathlon stands for ‘spirit’. That’s just one of the reasons why we switched from IRONMAN to Challenge Family this year. ‘We are Family’ and we want to continue in this direction
Although there wasn’t any racing in 2020, before the COVID Pandemic hit cancelling all events, IRONMAN had scheduled a 70.3 event in Graz the same weekend as Challenge St. Pölten, signalling that the corporation wasn’t going to make things easy for the new Challenge Family event. Once racing did return in 2022, the race never got back to its glory days of entries, which had topped off at over 2,000 finishers of the 70.3 race and about 3,500 athletes competing in all the various events during the weekend. There were under 1,000 finishers in 2022, and in 2025 there were 1,029 athletes who completed the event.
The race is returning to the IRONMAN fold, though, in 2027, and, based on the current demand for entries in Europe, should see a boost in participation numbers in 2027.
“Austria has been one of the anchor regions for IRONMAN in Europe and it has been a long-time ambition to give our Austrian triathlon community more opportunity to race with us,” said Thomas Veje Olsen, Managing Director for IRONMAN Europe, Middle East and Africa. “We are therefore excited to return to St. Pölten, a region that is a big part of our history and one that has remained close to our hearts. We look forward to working closely with the passionate local triathlon community once again and to deliver a fantastic race experience while showcasing the city of St. Pölten as a global triathlon destination. Another decisive factor in the return to St. Pölten was the willingness of the city of St. Pölten and the sports region of Lower Austria to provide IRONMAN with the best possible support, as in the past, in order to build on the successes of previous years. St. Pölten also has a great team of volunteers with years of experience and know-how.”
Team BMC and BMC Part Ways
Obviously there will be a new team name coming – possibly as soon as January 1, 2026, according to today’s social media post, but for now we do know that what we knew as the BMC Pro Triathlon Team won’t be partnered with BMC any longer.
The team that began as an all-Belgian affair in 2013 – the Uplace Pro Triathlon Team – would become the BMC Pro Triathlon Team in 2014 and has enjoyed some impressive results over the years, including Chelsea Sodaro’s big Kona win in 2024.
Over the years the team has broadened its focus to more than just long-distance racing, adding Olympians Sam Dickinson (bronze medalist in the mixed relay) and Miguel Hidalgo, but the team still had some IRONMAN standouts on the roster, including Antonio Benito Lopez (World Triathlon Long Distance champion and runner up at IRONMAN Texas) and Clement Mignon (last year’s runner-up at IRONMAN Texas and the IRONMAN Nice winner in 2023). The 2025 roster also included another 70.3 and full-distance racer, Thor Bendix Madsen, along with T100 and half-distance specialists Lucy Byram and Laura Madsen.
We’ll look forward to learning what the plans will be for the team in 2026 as they move on from the long-standing relationship with BMC. One thing that will be interesting to track is whether or not the team can come up with a model that will allow athletes to remain on the team once they achieve some greater success. The team has done a great job helping athletes like Chelsea Sodaro, Kat Matthews and Bart Aernouts to achieve some major results, but once they reach a certain status, it doesn’t make sense to continue with the team and be restricted on their sponsorship possibilities.
The End of the Line for Flo Cycling
Photo: Flo Cycling
We’re a bit late to this one, but we just noticed that Flo Cycling will be closing its doors. We caught up with co-founder Jon Thornham, who explains why the company is closing in greater detail in this podcast.
Flo Cycling got started way back in 2009 with a concept, and then a question on the Slowtwitch Forum – would there be a desire for affordable aero wheels. Needless to say, the answer was an overwhelming “yes.” The first wheels didn’t go on sale until 2012, but almost immediately they were a hit. The company quickly earned a reputation for well-engineered wheels at a much more affordable price than the competition.
“So many things have changed since we started out,” Thornham said in an interview today. “It’s a very different world from when we began. We were one of the first direct to consumer brands that were out there, offering an engineered product direct to consumer at a much lower price point.”
While the company had some innovative products in the works, the COVID pandemic hit hard. While the bike industry as a whole was struggling to keep up with demand as people looked to get outside as much as possible, there was no demand for Flo Cycling’s products.
“We were a race company – no one was racing,” Thornham said.
The industry has also changed dramatically – many bike companies now equip their bikes with carbon wheels, reducing the demand for the company’s products.
Northam also points to the changes required to market direct to consumer products these days. For years he had been a prodigious content creator, posting on various forums and with the company’s podcasts. These days that’s not enough to remain competitive.
“People are so focused on social media,” he said. “They’re moving away from blogs. A lot of the costs are now in the marketing. We didn’t have the margin to take on the customer acquisition costs.Most of the advertising we had done in the past was free through the content I was creating.”
For now Northam is moving on to a new, engineering-related business he started up a few years ago.
“I did not want to go back on producing an affordable, well engineered product,” he said. “I love this industry – it’s been a very fun ride. It’s a changing world. We had our time, we had a great run.”
You can check out the company’s “final pre-order” here.
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Participants
St. Pölten has always been great, as 70.3 or Challenge. I participated often, also this year, and recommend it.
thats a pitty with bmc as it is the most useful development team in triathlon for a good while now. I hope they can go on as they did.
and the selectors are top notch they have a very good nose.