Sam Laidlow Shatters Records With Huge Win at IRONMAN Lanzarote

He came. He saw. He kicked ass. The last time Sam Laidlow (FRA) started here at IRONMAN Lanzarote (in 2023), he didn’t manage to finish the race. Today he not only finished, he shattered the course record set by his former training partner, Arthur Horseau (8:22:30 in 2023), and bested three-time Kona champion Patrick Lange by almost 10 minutes.

Laidlow led from start to finish, coming out of the water with a 14-second lead over Nik Heldoorn (son of two-time IRONMAN Lanzarote champ Frank Heldoorn), with defending champion Dylan Magnien a minute down. Lange would exit the water 1:07 behind.

Once on the bike Laidlow quickly pulled clear of the rest of the field, setting a new bike course record with his 4:27:52 split to hit T2 over 10 minutes ahead of countryman Damien le Mesnager, over 15 minutes ahed of yet another Frenchman, Leon Chevalier, with Norway’s Jon Breivold and Jordi Montreveda Moya right around 17 minutes down. Sitting in ninth off the bike was Lange, who hit T2 almost 19 minutes behind the leader.

Once out on the run course, though, Lange made quick work of all the men ahead of him, surging through the field and moving into second place before the start of the third lap of the run. (The three loop run course in Lanzarote consists of one long loop followed by two shorter ones.) Even a course record run of 2:33:42 wasn’t nearly enough to put the German even close to Laidlow. Lange was happy to come away with his Kona slot, though, clearing the way for a Roth/ Kona double to finish out the season.

Montreveta Moya was solid through the run to nail third place as le Mesnager would have to settle for fourth.

As the lead announcer at today’s race, I was able to catch up with the champ after his big win.

Sam, a breathtaking race — 8:03 here in Lanzarote, a new bike course record, a new overall record. You must be thrilled with today?

Yeah, I mean, the first thing I said to my dad when I came across the line was that I ran really bad. That’s just the way I am, I guess. But I’m of course very happy. It’s a very, very tough race and very tough conditions, and Patrick thrives in these conditions. So yeah, to be nearly 10 minutes in front is a big win I think, and a lot of confidence going forward to Kona. But yeah, I can’t stress enough how hard that day was. I’ve just been laying here feeling like I’m going to vomit for the last 10 minutes and shivering and yeah… oh man.

We’ve talked a few times over the last year about the illness and the setbacks. It seems like you’ve come back from all of that as a more patient athlete — stronger, and better able to deal with days like today.

Yeah, I mean, from the outside when you have a 10-minute lead or something, it looks like you’re in cruise control and it looks easy to everyone. But yeah, in IRONMAN, anything can happen, you know. I still have these images of people crawling in Kona or stuff like this when I’m two km away from the finish. So it’s really never a done deal, and the last two to three km were really painful for me, even though I had a massive lead. But, yeah, I mean, the setbacks and stuff last year — I think I was just more vocal than most people, but I know for a fact that other athletes also go through setbacks. And yeah, that’s just part of my job, I guess.

On the bike, you were pretty much by yourself the entire race. Was that a challenge, or did that feel good?

I really enjoy being by myself on the bike because I can really focus on the time trialing aspect of it. Focusing on the art of time trialing, I would say, which is to put power out in certain parts of the course and focusing on being aero on other parts. And yeah, I just enjoy it. And today, as I said before the race, it would be a very, very honest race. I don’t think pack dynamics play a big role in tough courses like this. So yeah, I just focused on trying to go as fast as possible while still being efficient, and I think I did a good job. I mean, my power wasn’t super high, but I managed to go really quite fast. So yeah, I’m really happy.

Everyone was talking about the stacked field in Texas and Kristian Blummenfelt’s performance there. Was there any part of you wanting to send your own message today?

If anything, probably not — because I don’t want to get Kristian angry before Roth or Kona, because an angry Kristian is a very fast Kristian. So yeah, I think they’re very, very different races. I think Texas was almost more of a kind of short course draft legal race — even though there is a 20-meter rule, the pack dynamics and a flat course means it’s more of a run race. And here, I think it would be interesting for lots of the guys in Texas to come here. I think it’s completely different. But I think Kona is somewhat a mix of both of them, because the bike in Kona is still pretty hard and pretty hot and windy. For me, I can use this race and now go to Roth and go to Kona and think, thank God I can race for 20 minutes less, or even an hour less, you know, nearly. When I finished two laps here and I saw seven hours 20 or something, I was like, oh, that would be Roth — Roth would be finished now. So yeah, it’s really tough mentally, this race.

And finally, does a performance like this give you any tactical ideas for Kona, or does that go out the window when the field gets so deep?

Yeah, I think it’s difficult now because there’s more and more guys from short course coming up who want to race aggressively, want to race at the front — similar to how I used to be the first time I went to Kona. But now there’s a lot of guys like that. So, if anything, this performance, and even my performances last year in Leeds and Roth, have kind of given me confidence that I can just stick to my numbers and hopefully come through. Now there’s guys that are new to long course, like Jonas (Schomburg) and Marten (Van Reel), who are happy to race aggressively, and I’m happy to let them do that. If I can use them a little bit, then that’s great. But yeah, I think if anything, it’s just given me confidence that I can stick to my numbers and have a solid all-round performance.

Tags: