Kona Start Lists Are Always Epic. Is This Year Any Different?

For those of us who have been to Kona enough times (my first time there was in 1987 and I’ve been pretty much every year since 1995), it’s become an ongoing joke – the seemingly yearly refrain that “this year’s field is the most competitive … ever.” That’s the thing about the IRONMAN World Championship – even when there seemingly isn’t that much depth in the field, there is inevitably something that makes the race truly special. Anyone want to argue that the men’s race in 1989 wasn’t incredible, even though the first two finished over 22 minutes ahead of the third-place finisher? (In case you aren’t as much of an IRONMAN junkie as myself, Mark Allen and Dave Scott were in a class of their own that day, while Greg Welch had a breakthrough day to round out the podium.) Or how about the years that Paula Newby-Fraser won in Kona by over 30 minutes. The first time that happened, in 1988, she set a new course record by 34 minutes and finished 11th overall. In 1992 she would set a new course record of 8:55:28, finally breaking the nine-hour barrier she had been so close to with her course records in 1988 (9:01:01) and 1989 (9:00:56).

Over the years, though, the depth and the quality of the fields has steadily improved, which is what keeps leading us to that inevitable “most competitive … ever” statement every year. While Kona has always seen the world’s top triathletes arrive at their fittest, now that pool of “top” triathletes has become even deeper.

All of which is to say that the two headlines that IRONMAN used for their press releases announcing the pro field this year aren’t too over the top – as usual, we’re looking forward to a pretty amazing day of racing on the Big Island.

The Women’s Race – “Epic Showdown”

Those of us who have been around the sport for a long time remember the domination of certain athletes for a few years. Paula Newby-Fraser’s eight wins were punctuated by a few of Erin Baker’s titles. Natascha Badmann was unbeatable for a while. Then we had the Chrissie Wellington era, followed by Mirinda Carfrae’s run, which was followed by Daniela Ryf’s run. We haven’t had a repeat IRONMAN world champion, though, since Ryf’s last victory in St. George in 2022 when she took her fifth title. Since 2019 we’ve had six different champions – Anne Haug, Ryf, Chelsea Sodaro, Lucy Charles-Barclay, Laura Philipp and Solveig Lovseth. The last four on that list will be in Kona going after another title. While Lovseth’s victory last year came on debut and after the collapse of the two early race leaders (Charles-Barclay and Taylor Knibb), the Norwegian has more than proved she is a worthy world champion, having continued her full-distance winning ways with impressive wins in Texas and Hamburg.

Philipp took her IRONMAN world title in Nice, a course which is perfectly suited to her, and would dearly love to add a Kona title to her resume. It’s been an up and down season for the German, who found herself in hospital in May, but she’s on a roll after a win at IRONMAN Kalmar last month and appears to be rounding into top form.

Charles-Barclay signalled just how seriously she is chasing another Kona crown with the announcement that she’ll be skipping Nice, and while she hasn’t raced much this year after having surgery in January, she has raced well with a couple of good performances in Lanzarote and Roth.

In terms of that list of champions, Sodaro’s Kona prep remains a big question mark. The 2023 champ underwent surgery earlier this year and came back with an impressive start to her race in Lake Placid before the wheels fell off and she limped home to ratify her slot in 16th. If she’s remained healthy and has been able to get a good block of training done, she could be in the mix in Kona, but it’s definitely a long shot.

There are couple of women who haven’t ever won in Kona who will definitely be contenders for the win. At the top of that list is Kat Matthews, who has finished second at three different IRONMAN World Championship races. She won in New Zealand to start the year off in style, then had some bad luck in Texas and was sick at Roth (despite still managing a fourth-place finish there). This year has been totally geared for the next two races on her schedule – Nice and Kona, and we can no-doubt expect her to be in the mix at both races.

Another woman who hasn’t been on the top of the Kona podium is Knibb, whose season has featured a bit of everything – a runner-up finish to Lovseth in Texas (but with her best marathon run to date), a T100 win in Australia, a dominant performance at 70.3 Oceanside, some impressive draft-legal races and yet another US Time Trial championship. It all bodes very well for a big championship run in the fall, starting with the race in Nice next weekend where she will arrive as a three-time world champ who finished second and third the only other times she’s done the race.

Other names we can add to the list of podium potentials are last year’s fourth and fifth-place finishers, Hannah Berry and Lisa Perterer. Paris Olympic silver medalist and recent T100 Vancouver champ Julie Derron makes her Kona debut and will no-doubt be one to watch, as will another woman making her Kona debut, Paula Findlay, who had a great IRONMAN debut with her win in Lake Placid.

The Men

“The clash of the titans” is how IRONMAN billed this one as we see the Norwegian super-trio of Casper Stornes, Gustav Iden and Kristian Blummenfelt look to repeat their podium domination from Nice last year. There are five former IRONMAN world champions in the field – along with last year’s podium crew you also have three-time champion Patrick Lange and 2024 Nice champion Sam Laidlow. The top-15 finishers from last year’s race are all back, a sign of the depth of the field.

As with the women, the days of previous champions arriving in Kona as the prohibitive favourites seem to be long gone. Blummenfelt and Iden signalled a new era in the sport with their seemingly easy move from the Tokyo Olympics to long-distance expertise. While Patrick Lange provided a glimpse of the good ol’ days with his third Kona win in 2024, the Norwegians, along with the likes of Laidlow, Marten Van Riel and Jonas Schomberg have signalled that it’s only going to get harder for athletes who aren’t superb in all three sports to succeed at the world championship.

In terms of form charts, it’s really hard to pick a man who will arrive in Kona as the top gun. Kristian Blummenfelt was in dominant form at IRONMAN Texas, only to have Sam Laidlow put together an incredible race at Challenge Roth to hold off the Norwegian’s charge. Stornes was third in Texas, then won in Frankfurt. Iden took second in Frankfurt. Van Riel took second in Texas, then won in Lake Placid. Schomberg might have finished sixth at last year’s race, but arrives in Kona after finally dialling in a well-paced full-distance race to win IRONMAN Kalmar in an impressive time.

Lange has announced that he’ll retire from pro racing at Challenge Roth next year, and so this will be his final go in Kona. Finding the fire power on the bike to stay with this next generation will be a challenge for the German – even if he can muster yet another 2:30 marathon, with so many of the other contenders also running in the low 2:30s, his speedy run split isn’t likely to get him to the top of the podium unless there is a lot of carnage at the front of the field.

As we saw in last year’s women’s race, carnage at the front of the field can suddenly turn a podium contender into a champion, and there are a lot of men in this field with viable visions of a top-three performance. IRONMAN Cairns champ Nick Thompson is one of those. Then there are a group of Americans to consider. Matthew Marquardt won in South Africa, followed by runner-up finishes in Lake Placid (behind Van Riel) and Kalmar (behind Schomberg). Rudy Von Berg has been on the podium in Kona before, his third in 2024 to follow from his fourth in 2023 in Nice, so he knows what it takes to be near the front. Trevor Foley won in New Zealand to start the year, but hasn’t returned to that kind of form – but his recent European swing and subsequent build to Kona might get him back in the picture. (While IRONMAN highlighted Sam Long in their release, it seems like a bit of a stretch for the popular American to suddenly be able to work himself into the podium picture in Kona – he wasn’t ever able to get close to the lead group in Texas, and things are only going to be quicker in Kona, one would imagine. Ditto for IRONMAN Pro Series leader Matt Hanson, whose consistency this year has been amazing.)

There will no-doubt be lots of other men fighting in the lead group heading down the Queen K, and some will hang tough through the initial stages of the run. Include the likes of Jamie Riddle, Kristian Hogenhaug, Brock Hoel, Pierre Le Corre, Vincent Luis, Antonio Benito Lopez, Damien Le Mesnager and Ben Kanute to that group. A breakout run day from Luis or Le Corre (or any of that list, for that matter) could lead to a top finish on the Big Island.

Who knows if it’s the best field ever for either the men or the women. We do know it’s going to be a lot of fun to watch.

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