Do Late Season IRONMAN Champions Go On To Shine At the IRONMAN World Championship? Rarely.

Today IRONMAN released the list of pro athletes set to race at IRONMAN Cozumel. Highlighting the women’s field are defending champion Lisa Perterer (AUS) and American Chelsea Sodaro, with Germany’s Anne Reischmann making her second start since becoming a mom last April. For the men, Americans Matthew Marquardt and Sam Long, along with Youri Keulen (NLD) are listed at the top of the men’s field, but since Long just finished fourth in Florida, we’re assuming that he won’t be racing in Mexico. Then, of course, you have Lionel Sanders, who announced he would be in Cozumel last week.

After last weekend’s speed-fest in Florida, we got to thinking about the track record for late-season IRONMAN podium finishers when it came to competing at the IRONMAN World Championship the following year. Does getting that late-season qualification, or validation, out of the way really help?

Of course, just crunching the numbers (OK, or having AI do it – but I promise, I had to step in more than a few times since I was at a lot of the races in Florida, Arizona, Cozumel and Western Australia and had to either dig for results or explain that there wasn’t a pro race in certain years) doesn’t tell the whole picture. Kona qualification for pros has changed over the years, affecting just how and when people have had to race.

Pre-2011 pros qualified through direct, race-by-race qualifying – there were typically one to three qualifying slots at different races, which would roll down if athletes had already qualified or declined their slot. Back in these days pros who finished in the top-10 at the IRONMAN World Championship, along with previous Kona champions, earned an automatic invite to the next year’s race. There was no validation required, either, so if you finished in the top-10 in Kona, there was no need to head off to a late-season IRONMAN race. Well, unless you were gunning for some prize money or really liked to race.

To try and engender more competition at bigger events, in 2011 IRONMAN introduced the Kona Pro Rankings (KPR) System. This season-long points system meant pros had to accumulate points over a rolling 12-month qualifying window. Most importantly, that window included Kona, which was considered a P-8000 race, double the points available at the regional championship (P-4000) races, with “standard” IRONMAN events worth 2,000 points. IRONMAN 70.3 races earned 500 to 750 points, with the IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship offering 3,000 points for the win. There were no longer automatic qualifying slots for the top-10, but a top-10 finish would earn some major points, putting those athletes on a good track to getting to Kona the following year. Champions were given a five-year qualifying exemption, but now had to “validate” their slot with a full-distance finish sometime during the qualifying window. (Lifetime exemptions were eliminated, too.)

For the 2019 season things changed again. There was a return to a slot-allocation system, with every IRONMAN race guaranteeing at least one men’s and women’s pro spot. Regional championships offered more slots, and “unassigned” slots were distributed to races based on the size of the field. The five-year Kona winner exemption continued, as did the validation requirement. IRONMAN made one more change in 2024, changing the five-year exemption to just a one-year exemption for champions.

(I should probably note that IRONMAN 70.3 World Champions have always earned a qualifying spot for Kona, too.)

That change has certainly made late-season races a more popular option for many pros, especially those who can recover quickly after an IRONMAN race and who are keen to get qualifying out of the way early.

Late Season Racing

As you’ll see in the charts below, there is a limited number of athletes who have finished on the podium at the IRONMAN races in Florida, Cozumel, Arizona or Western Australia over the years who have then finished in the top-five at the IRONMAN World Championship the following year.

In many ways, that’s not surprising. As I pointed out earlier, for many years a top-10 in Kona meant you could cruise through the rest of the year and be sure you were returning the following year. Since the best predictor of success in Kona is, well, success in Kona, it hardly comes as a surprise that you rarely saw those who finished in the top-five in any given year having raced at one of the late-season IRONMAN races the previous year.

That doesn’t mean that some athletes who would later enjoy Kona success wouldn’t ever race in Florida, Arizona, Cozumel or Western Australia – many would compete at one of those races during their early years of full-distance racing.

Two of those “newbies” are the only men to have won one of the late-season races and then become the world champion the following year – Kristian Blummenfelt and Gustav Iden. Iden made his IRONMAN debut after competing at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, winning IRONMAN Florida. Blummenfelt would make his full-distance debut in Cozumel, also taking the win there after his gold medal performance in Tokyo. The following year, Blummenfelt won the “2021 IRONMAN World Championship” held in St. George in May, 2022. Then, in October of that year, Iden would win in Kona, with Blummenfelt finishing third.

There are two examples on the women’s side – Chrissie Wellington won IRONMAN Arizona in 2010 after pulling out of Kona the previous month due to illness. She would go on to win her fourth and final Kona title the following year. Then, in 2011, Leanda Cave would also win in Arizona (after finishing third in Kona that year), then take the win in Kona in 2012. That same year, Mirinda Carfrae “validated” her Kona slot in Florida after a tough day on the Big Island (well, her version of tough – she was third), then took the 2013 IRONMAN World Championship.

There is one athlete who has taken a late-season win then finished second in Kona the following year – Lionel Sanders (Arizona, 2016 and Kona 2017). On paper Kat Matthews achieved the same feat, having won IRONMAN Florida in 2020 and then taking second at the IRONMAN World Championship in St. George, which was officially the 2021 championship, but took place in 2022.

Certainly Magnus Ditlev now hopes to join the two Norwegians who have achieved the rare late-season IRONMAN/ World Championship double. IRONMAN Arizona took place for the last time last year, so now we’ll have to see if the winners or podium finishers from Cozumel and Western Australia can buck the trend, too.

Late Season Podium Finishers Who Finished Top Five at IMWC the Next Year

Every top-three finisher from IRONMAN races in Cozumel, Florida, Arizona and Western Australia (including the winner) who placed in the top five at the next IRONMAN World Championship.

Men

Women

Races are compared with the Worlds held after them. Years with no pro race or a cancelled Worlds are excluded. Arizona’s April races (2005 to 2008) are excluded. Cozumel 2021 winner Kristian Blummenfelt appears twice, for the 2021 edition at St. George (May 2022) and the Kona race in October 2022.

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