Slowtwitch’s Predictions for Kona 2024

It seems like every year there’s more hype about the quality of the field racing the IRONMAN World Championship. Most of the time that’s media or Internet personality driven, hyperbole trying to drive up page views or social media engagements; the fields are usually somewhat the same.

It’s a little different this year when you have three former world champions all saying the same thing: this has potential to be the closest and most competitive World Championship race of all time. And that doesn’t just have to do with the margin between winning and second; it’s likely to be a battle all the way through the final paycheck-earning place of 15th. The last time men were in Kona, there was a 24 minute spread from winner Gustav Iden to 15th place Matt Hanson — and it took an 8:04:54 from Hanson to even earn that paycheck.

Here are my bold predictions for this year’s race.

Course Records Will Not Fall

It takes the right mix of athletes racing, weather conditions, and gamesmanship for this particular course record to fall. Although we have seen the record books seemingly re-written all year at big races (e.g., Magnus Ditlev at Roth), that doesn’t look to be the case for today anymore.

Namely, it’s the weather.

There’s a high surf advisory out for Kona at the moment. Even when there’s just “texture” on the water, to borrow the phrase from Michael Lovato, it usually adds time to the swim. There’s an outstanding chance this race starts getting blown apart in the water. That’s bad news for athletes who have deficits to make up coming out of the water. But it also means a slow swim puts things behind the eight ball for trying to go under 7:40.

Once out of the water and it doesn’t get much better — rain showers in the morning, which will give way to cloudy and humid conditions, now with winds gusting up to 30-35 MPH out of the east. It’s all a recipe for your traditional sight of contenders walking on the marathon at one point or another. It will be less of a drag race and more a war of attrition.

The Top 15 Will Be Closer Than Ever

As mentioned at the start, the spread between first and 15th in the last men’s World Championships in Kona was 24 minutes; it was slightly more than that last year in Nice.

That said, there’s more men here this year than ever who have IRONMAN finishes under eight hours. And not only that, there’s more men who have shown aptitude for racing in the kinds of conditions that we should expect on Sunday. It’s unlike any other year. All of the major pre-race favorites have raced well in hot and humid events. And that’s before starting to talk through athletes on the verge of a breakout performance, or the Kona veteran who glues together a race that you never see on camera until they’ve landed a paycheck.

My estimation is that the margin between first and fifteenth will sit at 19 minutes. It should make for some great watching — and furious typing — on Saturday.

My Podium Prediction

My head says this is another Sam Laidlow party. My heart says this should be Magnus Ditlev‘s moment of triumph.

So, naturally, I’m picking Kristian Blummenfelt to win.

It is impossible to ignore Blummenfelt’s ability to race competitively in just about anything. I’m pretty sure that you could put him in winter triathlon this off-season and he’d wreck everyone. Although he wasn’t the tour de force you’ve come to know at this year’s Olympics, he reminded us all about his ability to race IRONMAN well with his 7:27:21 at Frankfurt. He feels inevitable.

I think Ditlev, Laidlow, Blummenfelt and Rudy Von Berg are likely to start the run together, having dispatched the chasers into the wind on the return trip from Hawi. Von Berg does not have the run resume the other three have; I say he is the first to drop from the group, but won’t falter; instead, he’ll hold onto a fourth place finish. The other three should battle into the later stages of the marathon, where Kristian will pull away on the return from the Natural Energy Lab. I expect Laidlow in second, Ditlev hot on his heels in third.

Might as well throw fifth place in here: Patrick Lange. He’ll have a healthy deficit coming off the bike but should be able to run through a bunch of guys, as he always does. The run course record might be in question with him — as it always is when Lange is in the field — but I don’t think that will be enough to catch the other four.

Other Bold Predictions

Quick ones here:

• Lionel Sanders will crack the Top 10, but it’s going to take a true Sanders turn your insides out performance to do so.
• Gustav Iden will not, as he’ll try to race like he did in 2022 but not have the reserves of fitness to do so.
• Antonio Benitez Lopez is a popular pick in our forum discussion. I think he’s thereabouts but eats some Kona humble pie at some point and winds up 13th.
• I’m putting the over/under on bike position penalties at 4.5; I’ll take the over. Too many guys in not enough real estate, especially after what the swim is likely to do to the field.
• I’m taking Matthew Marquardt over Trevor Foley; Leon Chevalier over Arnaud Guilloux; and Jackson Laundry over Matt Hanson.

How to Watch

If you’re in the United States or Canada, tune in live on OutsideTV (formerly known as Outside Watch). Everywhere else, you can watch on either DAZN or via the IRONMAN Pro Series website. Replays will be available on YouTube for everywhere except the U.S. and Canada, where it’s back on Outside.

Lead Photo: Donald Miralle / IRONMAN
Sam Laidlow: Ezra Shaw / Getty Images for IRONMAN

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