Four Freezing Cold Takes for the 2026 IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship
This weekend brings us the start of triathlon’s peak season of professional racing, with the 2026 IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship in Nice, France. And that can only mean one thing.
We are so back.
Yep, that’s right, it’s time to deliver a few of my patented but not quite trademarked Freezing Cold Takes on the professional racing action we’re about to see. The last time I rolled one of these out I had to eat both my hat and a lot of crow after *ahem* saying that Lucy Charles-Barclay wouldn’t win the 70.3 world title after pulling out of Kona. This is why they’re freezing cold, people…I’m not afraid to be wrong and sit here in my wrongness and be wrong and get used to it.
So, with my batting average for these sitting near the Mendoza line for futility, let’s get down to business.
Taylor Knibb Will Win Her Fourth 70.3 World Title
Given that Charles-Barclay has withdrawn from Nice to focus on Kona, it means that Knibb moves back into prohibitive favorite status. And for good reason: Knibb has won three 70.3 world championships in a row, finished second to Charles-Barclay last year, and was third at 70.3 worlds in St. George and got beaten by…you guessed it, Charles-Barclay and Jeanni Metzler.
Needless to say, she’s earned her reputation of being the favorite when she toes the line at middle distance races. In fact, that 2021 70.3 World Championship where Knibb finished third was the last time before last year’s worlds where she hadn’t won a 70.3 she started. She is that good, folks.
And, all things considered, this is the type of course that should absolutely suit Knibb, too. It’s merely a question of when she comes to the front, not if, and how much of a lead that she will have coming out of T2. This is especially true given that Knibb will head to the UCI World TT Championships right after Nice; you have to assume the bike form is near peak. The flatter run should also be of benefit to her, as compared to the struggles she faced at St. George back in 2021 with the rolling hills there. It just gives less of an opportunity for the stronger runners like Kat Matthews or Laura Philipp to close.
Lastly, if Knibb wins, she’d only trail Daniela Ryf by one 70.3 world championship on the all-time list. Not too shabby.
The Battle For Second
There are six names that come to mind in this next section. We’ve already hit on two of them: Matthews and Philipp are the most obvious selections for the podium. Of them, I take Matthews; she’s so close to taking one of these world championship races and just gets beaten with near other-worldly performances each time. Philipp tends to get better the longer the race distance is; this is also her first 70.3 Worlds since 2023, where she finished sixth. We’re nearly a full decade since her bronze in 2017.
Then there’s Julie Derron, Marjolainne Pierré, Paula Findlay, and defending IRONMAN world champion Solveig Løvseth. Derron, the 2024 Olympic silver medalist, last finished off the podium in a middle distance race 13 months ago. That span includes four wins and a third at last year’s T100 Final. She was also fifth in her only other 70.3 Worlds start. Derron will most likely be behind starting the swim and will need to work through the field. Tactically, it feels like it will be a matter of whether she’ll try to bridge to Knibb on the bike, or race her own race. I think her best shot is to rocket to the front at all costs and hope to hold on.
For Findlay and Løvseth, the playbook is pretty similar; they’ll want to make the bike spicy to sap the pure run speed from some of the other contenders, and then run their typically strong half marathons. I think this course can play in their favor; both Findlay and Løvseth thrive on more challenging courses. Of them, Løvseth is the faster pure runner, but I wouldn’t count Findlay out. Yes, we’re six years removed from her Challenge Daytona / PTO Championship milestone win (where she beat the likes of Matthews and Philipp), but she continues to show up in quality fields.
And then there’s somewhat hometown hero Pierré. She had a full-on coming out party at the IRONMAN World Championships in Nice, contending for the podium until late in the marathon when Chelsea Sodaro closed her down. She’s raced sparingly (for her) this year, with four starts to date. She defended her title at 70.3 Pays d’Aix, with a four minute margin over Imogen Simmonds and Philipp, and took second in her last start in Sweden, getting outrun by Bianca Bogen there. She knows these roads and could steal the show.
I’m Ready to Crown Kristian Blummenfelt
I get it. It’s been four years since Blummenfelt won a 70.3 world title. He was seven minutes behind fellow countryman Gustav Iden the last time he raced 70.3 worlds in Nice, finishing fourth. And, of course, he got beaten by Jelle Geens for the title last year in a sprint…that we couldn’t watch…until the following day…because the broadcast went to landscape shots as the winning moves were taking place.
But I digress.
I’m bullish on Blummenfelt for a couple of reasons. The first comes down to form on the year. He’s had a very similar build to last year, where he took podiums at both IRONMAN branded world championship events. After a somewhat mundane sixth place at IRONMAN New Zealand to start his year off this year, Blummenfelt rattled off three wins in four weeks, taking titles at Geelong, Oceanside, and Texas. He also ran sub-2:30 at Challenge Roth in his second-place to the absent here Sam Laidlow. Frankly, his schedule means he’s just under two months removed from his last start, meaning he should be fresh heading into Nice.
And that brings us to my next point: Blummenfelt looks like he’s very fresh. He came second at the practice swim this week, literally on the feet of winner Lasse Nygaard Priester.
These two had nearly a minute on the chasers behind them. If the other male pros give Blummenfelt that kind of a lead going onto the climbs of this bike course, I don’t think you see him again till the run course.
Well, barring an equipment issue. And Blummenfelt has had some impressively bad luck with his bike in big races. But, I think he’ll be dialed.
Hayden Wilde Will Not Be a Major Factor
Let’s file this one to the “bold strategy, Cotton” folder, as we’re picking against just about everybody’s number one ranked athlete in the world. Wilde earned that title by winning six out of his seven T100 starts in 2025, with the only blemish being an 8th place in Dubai. Wilde has also had a much lighter 2026 schedule, having not raced middle distance since June.
But scratching a little bit beneath the surface shows some trends that I think will see Wilde struggle a bit more in Nice. Looking at his results from 2025, half of his victories came with a margin of victory under a minute. The largest gap to second place came at Spain’s T100 event, where he was 2:25 in front of Geens, with all of that gap earned on the run. Yes, Wilde won, but he wasn’t dominating fields.
Perhaps more troubling for Wilde’s chances are his performances thus far in 2026. Wilde got a taste of his own racing medicine in Geelong, where both Blummenfelt and Geens chased him down to relegate him to third place. He then won in Singapore with an excellent performance in challenging conditions. And on a challenging bike course at the T100 race in San Francisco, Wilde gave up nearly five full minutes to Rico Bogen and two and a half minutes to the aforementioned Nygaard Priester, as Wilde held onto third in front of faster running Morgan Pearson and Jason West.
Wilde also looks exhausted this week. In the words of Sebastian Kienle, there’s a fine line between fit and f*cked. From what I can tell, it sure looks like he’s riding that line. I’m going to pencil him in for a top 5 finish, but I don’t see him factoring for the win.
While we’re here, let’s just give my top five for the men: Blummenfelt, Geens, Marten Van Riel, Gustav Iden, and Wilde. In that order.
How to Watch
The 2026 IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship takes place on Saturday, September 12th and Sunday, September 13th. Women will race on Saturday, with men on Sunday. For both days, the professional wave will begin the action at 7 AM local time. For those in the US, that’s 1 AM Eastern time, or 10 PM Pacific the day before (Friday evening / Saturday evening). You can watch live on YouTube or the IRONMAN Pro Series website.
Tags:
IRONMAN 70.3IRONMAN 70.3 World ChampionshipNice 2026Related Articles:
Notable Replies
Continue the discussion at forum.slowtwitch.com
Participants
Everyone sleeping on Gustav is exactly where he wants it.
I enjoyed this piece. I’m curious about the bit toward the end about Hayden looking exhausted. Is that RH’s personal observation, scuttlebutt, or something else?
And has anyone heard about MVR? Rumor is that he was sick last week, but I don’t know how serious it was or whether it’s carried over to race week. It’s hard to see a healthy MVR not finishing on the podium, but if he’s sick that’s a different story.
He often looks that way. Honestly, I’d say he looks like some of the high schoolers that are on their phone all night and then show up early to practice.
Could also just be something like allergies. But if he’s not leaving his phone in another room when he falls asleep… He might want to consider it.
He was giving me strong “third week of the Tour” vibes out of what I’ve seen. Larger than normal bags under the eyes. Kinda looks a touch rundown.
Hence the Kienle reference. He could have had a huge build and timed the end of it perfectly and I would not be shocked to be eating crow come Sunday. But I also err on the side of people who come in undertrained…we’ve seen that work time and time again with Kona and people who picked up injuries in their builds, had to dial way back on their training, and then have great races because they were fresh.
Bold strategy, Cotton.
Like Vicky Holland noted, you don’t come a hair’s breadth away from beating Matt Hauser in a 50-minute race when you’re exhausted.
Same thoughts here. I spent the first few minutes of his latest video trying to discern if he had black eyes like he got punched in the face or just heavy bags/dark circles under them. Still don’t know…