The Faces of Norseman Part One – Meet the Athletes Racing in Norway this Weekend

France Lemieux prepares for the jump off the ferry on Saturday morning. Photo: Kevin Mackinnon

The 2025 edition of the Norseman Xtreme Triathlon in Norway is almost here, and the small village of Eidfjord (the host town where the race starts) is abuzz with activity as the couple of hundred athletes ready themselves for race day. There was a social swim for racers on Thursday, giving them the chance to meet one another and test the cold waters of Hardangerfjord (the second-largest fjord in Norway and the site of the Norseman swim course), and Slowtwitch was lucky enough to be on site to meet a number of these athletes. There are 276 people registered to race on Saturday, and we have more athlete profiles coming, but here are a few to kick off what is sure to be an exciting weekend of triathlon.

Enjoying Life

Canada’s France Lemieux, 59, is in Eidfjord to race the Norseman for the first time, and she says it is a dream come true to be here. “I’ve waited to do this race for seven years,” she says. She has raced CanadaMan/ Woman (the XTRI World Tour event in her home province of Quebec) three times, and she says she is ready to finally conquer the Norseman.

“They say that it is the toughest triathlon in the world,” she says. “I don’t know, I will tell you after the race.”

There are two finish lines on the Norseman course, with one of them culminating with a massive climb to the top of Mount Gaustatoppen. Only the first 160 of the nearly 300 athletes will be directed to that finish line, and while Lemieux says she would love to be one of them, she really only has one goal for the race: make it to end, no matter which finish line that ends up being.

“I would like to go up the mountain, but if not, I’ll go up the day after,” she says with a laugh.

France Lemieux poses after a training swim in Eidfjord. Photo: Kevin Mackinnon

Lemieux is excited for this next challenge, now just a couple of days away, but she has faced plenty harder. She lost her husband to cancer a number of years ago, and she herself fought breast cancer. It was after she recovered that she decided to get into triathlon.

“I’m making sure to enjoy life,” she said. “And when it’s a challenge, it’s good for me.”

From Canadaman to Norseman

Another Canadian woman set to race this weekend is Elyse Latimer. Latimer is an emergency department nurse, but when she’s not working, she’s finding time to train for XTRI events. She won the XTRI World Tour’s CanadaMan race in 2024, and she’s looking for her next big challenge at Norseman.

“It’s pretty surreal to be here,” Latimer says. “It’s really beautiful and I’m feeling pretty lucky.”

She says she is feeling some pre-race nerves, but she adds that that is to be expected.

“I feel like that’s normal before any race. I’m nervous, but also excited.”

Latimer has run a pair of IRONMAN-branded races before, but she says that after she found XTRI, she fell in love with that more extreme style of racing. “Those races have a little something extra compared to a regular IRONMAN,” she says. “I just can’t see my self going back to the other races.”

Elyse Latimer says she will be proud of any finish this weekend. Photo: Kevin Mackinnon

Although she admits that the Norseman hasn’t been on her radar for long, she says it is “definitely a bucket list item” for her now. She’ll have her first shot at crossing it off her bucket list on Saturday, and although she says she is aiming to make it into the top 160, she will be proud of herself no matter where she finishes.

Back for One More

Danish-born Norway resident Michael Windfield will be racing the Norseman Xtreme Triathlon for the second time on Saturday. He started racing triathlon in 2013 after a friend convinced him to do an IRONMAN. A few years later in 2017, his wife raced the Norseman. He was on her support crew that race, and in 2022, she returned the favor, supporting him as he completed the full-distance event through the Norwegian mountains.

The support crew feature of XTRI races is why he likes them so much, Windfield says.

“You can’t do them alone. You have to have good support, you have to be a part of the family, and that’s the charming thing. It’s not like IRONMAN and all the other long distance triathlons. It’s different.” This year, his wife is back on his support team, along with their children.

Michael Windfield and his wife, 2017 Norseman finisher Anne Grethe Kvist. Photo: Kevin Mackinnon

Since his Norseman debut, he has raced another XTRI World Tour event, completing the Black Lake race in Montenegro last year. “That was fantastic,” Windfield says. “But a rough course.” Thankfully, he knows what the Norseman has in store for him, as it will certainly have a few “rough” moments throughout. He says he also knows what’s coming his way when he reaches the finish line on Saturday.

“It’s almost impossible to describe how it is,” he says. “Not even when you cross the finish line, but before, when you realize you’re going to cross. You get an emotional feeling in your whole body. Especially when you do it with your family. It’s fantastic.”

A First for Kazakhstan

Ruslan Erzhanov has finished multiple XTRI World Tour events, but never the Norseman Xtreme Triathlon. If he does cross the finish line on Saturday, he could be the first athlete from Kazakhstan to conquer this race. The emphasis in that sentence is on the words “could be the first,” because Erzhanov’s friend, training partner and fellow Kazakh, Galym Chuashev, is also racing this weekend. The pair are both strong athletes (they finished second and third at the Himalayan XTRI race in Nepal last year), so it could go either way on race day.

Ruslan Erzhanov and his training partner, Galym Chuashev, at the swim practice in Eidfjord. Photo: Kevin Mackinnon

“All of our friends from our triathlon club are cheering for us and joking that we’re racing each other to be the first from Kazakhstan,” Erzhanov says. He isn’t too concerned with this detail, however, and he says “just finishing is a good result.” Even with that mindset, he still has hopes for a strong finish. “It depends on how the other participants do, but I would like to be near the top 20.”

Results and other external factors are far from Erzhanov’s mind on race day, he says. “I just focus on the race. I don’t think about something hurting or any discomfort. I have a target, I know I want to finish by a specific time, I know that this is just temporary pain. But at the end of the day, you will be awarded with the finish, with happiness. It motivates me to keep pushing further.”

Overcoming Depression Through Sport

We featured Julia Skala after her impressive fourth-place Kona-qualifying finish at IRONMAN Lanzarote in May. The German has an auspicious schedule ahead with Saturday’s Norseman before she takes a short break and then begins her build for Kona. All of which begs the question – with Kona on the calendar, why is she racing here in Norway? Turns out this race had been an important goal for her in 2025.

“At the beginning of the year I thought about my place in racing and the sport,” she said. “I know I am a competitive type of athlete and I want to race … but I’m also an adventurer. I want to be outside, I want to be in nature, in the mountains. I want to feel different conditions. I thought, I want to have something like this in a race. I want to not only beat numbers, I want to test myself and go to the limit. I think I found this limit here.”

Photo: Julia Skala will be one to watch as she tackles the Norseman course on Saturday. Photo: Kevin Mackinnon

Skala has a camera crew following her along here in Norway — they ware working on a documentary about her struggles to overcome depression. 

“My story is that I have to deal with a depression, and it’s not finished now, but it is better … and I want to show people what depression is and what you have to do to handle it,” she says. “I want to show what it means to have a depression and that you can never give up. Always move forward and have people around you who support you and then you can manage it and you can come to Norseman.”

Skala acknowledged that being an athlete can sometimes lead to pressure that can affect your mental health, but she emphasized how important it is to overcome that negative aspect of competition and focus on the positive side of the equation. 

Skala with her husband (and coach) and dog. Photo: Kevin Mackinnon

“Sports is something that brings you outside and in nature,” she says. “You can reach your goals and show yourself limits — it shouldn’t be something where you are putting pressure on yourself to compete against others. You are competing with yourself.”

With that in mind, Skala is looking to finish amongst the leaders at the top of Gaustatoppen, but she’ll take whatever finish she gets.

“I want to reach the top, but I want to give my best on race day — to be the best version of myself,” she says.

With files from Kevin Mackinnon  

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