They Said It: How the Top 5 Felt After a Stellar Day of Racing at the IRONMAN World Championship Nice

The top five men in Nice. Photo: Kevin Mackinnon

After just a few hours of rest and recovery, the top five men at the 2025 IRONMAN World Championship in Nice made an appearance at the post-race press conference. The panel of course featured the Norwegian trio of Casper Stornes, Gustav Iden and Kristian Blummenfelt, plus Belgium’s Marten Van Riel and France’s Sam Laidlow. Here’s what each of them had to say after a day full of ups and downs, disappointments and dreams come true.

Laidlow’s “Mixed Emotions”

Anyone following the race likely knows that Laidlow had a bit of a hiccup early on in the day. Normally a front-of-the-race swimmer, Laidlow had to stop mid-race, and he grimaced his way through transition to his bike after exiting the water. He said he had to stop due to cramping in both hip flexors.

“I had to stop and stretch it out,” he said. “It was a long swim. I couldn’t wait to get out of the water, to be honest.”

Laidlow continued, saying that it was “definitely the closest” that he has ever come to stopping a race. The thought of his family, friends and everyone else who came to support him kept him focused, though, and once he was on the bike he put on a classic Laidlow performance.

Laidlow had the fastest ride of the day. Photo: Eric Wynn

He recorded the fastest bike split of the day, covering the course in 4:29:29. He laid it all on the line to not only bridge the gap he faced after the swim, but to move to the front of the race, and this has left him with “mixed emotions,” he said.

“I’m happy with how I dealt with how I felt,” he said. “Am I happy with the result? No.”

He added that he doesn’t believe he would have fared any better in the rankings had he swam up to his usual standard.

“[The top four] were really strong […] today,” he said. “I don’t think it would’ve changed anything.”

Van Riel’s World Champs Debut

Van Riel booked his ticket to Nice in March, when he finished second at IRONMAN South Africa in a speedy 7:49:27. Many people were looking at him as an athlete to watch as the world championship approached, but in July, he suffered an ankle injury that kept him from running for much of the summer.

“It’s pretty incredible that I could turn that around,” he said at the press conference. “I was really doubting if I would even be part of this race.” 

Van Riel had an amazing IRONMAN World Championship debut. Photo: Kevin Mackinnon

He made it to the start line, but he said he was still unsure if his running fitness was at the necessary level to be a podium threat. So, he decided to push hard in the first two legs of the race.

“We made a plan to make the swim quite hard with a couple of guys,” he said. “I think we really took it by the horns and didn’t make it easy.”

That plan worked in the water, with Switzerland’s Andrea Salvisberg leading out of the water in an IRONMAN World Championship record time of 45:11. Van Riel was right behind him, just six seconds back, and then he set off on the ride at a punishing pace.

This plan worked for a long time, but in the end, the rest of the eventual top five men caught him. In the end, his run was still solid, and he managed a 2:40:46 marathon.

“It wasn’t very fun, actually, and now my legs are hurting very much,” he said with a laugh before adding one last noteworthy stat.

“I’m still proud to be first non-Norwegian,” he said.

A “Spicy Pace”

Blummenfelt executed a phenomenal race, and as he neared the end of the bike ride, with Laidlow close by and a gap over Iden and Stornes, it looked like it was his race to lose. He said he even thought that for a beat.

Blummenfelt dug deep to round out the podium with his training partners and friends. Photo: Kevin Mackinnon

“I sort of felt like, yeah, I almost had it in my pocket,” he said. “But then, as we came down to the promenade again, suddenly [Iden and Stornes] were joining the train.”

Blummenfelt said he was of two minds about this. On the one hand, he “had more company on the run,” but on the other, Iden wanted to run faster than planned.

“Gustav went off in a quite spicy pace right away,” Blummenfelt said. He and Iden ran together for the first stretch of the run, chasing down Van Riel and Laidlow. When they caught them (and Stornes pulled up behind, making it a group of five), Iden was eager to push the pace.

“He was looking around to me and, like, ‘Are you keen to be in the front?'” Blummenfelt said. “And I told him, ‘I don’t really need it. It’s not like I have a need to be [up there].'”

Iden would then carry on, only to turn back a few minutes later.

“He would ask me again, like, ‘Are you sure you don’t want to be in the front?'” he said. Blummenfelt eventually accepted his fate and moved to the front, taking a turn in the lead.

Ultimately, however, it was neither him nor Iden who ended up at the front, as Stornes flew by everyone to take the win. When asked how he felt about coming in third behind his two training partners, Blummenfelt shrugged.

A dream day for the Norwegians. Photo: Kevin Mackinnon

“Finishing the third and being the slowest in the group isn’t too bad,” he said.

It is a pretty fast training group, after all.

Iden’s Big Comeback

Iden may have finished second, but to anyone who tuned into the live coverage the moment he crossed the finish line, it would have looked like he won. He had a massive smile on his face as he pulled Stornes into a hug.

“To see Casper win his first world title out of hopefully many […] it was very very emotional for me,” Iden said.

Even better, his other teammate in Blummenfelt finished in third, making it an all-Norway affair in Nice on Sunday.

“We have dreamt of this for along time,” he said. “We came here in January to be here and get ready for this race, because we knew it would take a lot to ride with Sam (Laidlow) and run with Patrick [Lange].”

Iden said he, Stornes and Blummenfelt have been “trying this whole season to win this race,” so pulling off a podium sweep is “truly unbelievable.”

Iden leads Blummenfelt on the run course. Photo: Kevin Mackinnon

Of course, while they’re friends and teammates in life, on the race course they still want to beat one another. There was a stretch on the run course when it was just the three of them running side by side. It could have been easy to be lulled into a sense of comfort by running with his buddies, but Iden said he still ran with tactics in mind.

“I don’t think any tactics would’ve beaten Casper today,” he said. “He was just so much better.”

A First for Stornes

There was a make-or-break moment for Stornes early in the run. He had caught the group of Laidlow, Van Riel, Iden and Blummenfelt, but then his fellow Norwegians took off once again. He could have tagged along and tried to go with them, but had he done that, the race could have ended much differently.

“I needed to be smart if I wanted to beat them,” he said. “Gustav put on quite a heavy pace and I was like, ‘Is he going for a 2:25 [marathon]?’”

As hard as it was to potentially watch the win run away from him up the road, Stornes forced himself to follow his plan of running 3:30 kilometres (5:38 per mile).

“I felt actually quite good,” he said. “But it’s easy to feel good at the start of a marathon also, so I didn’t take anything for granted that I would feel like that the whole way.”

Stornes wins his first world crown. Photo: Kevin Mackinnon

Sticking to his pacing plan worked out, and soon enough, he had caught his teammates. Not long after, he had dropped them, cruising to the win in the final miles before crossing the line in 7:51:39 (including a 2:29:25 marathon).

“It was unreal,” he said. “I’ve been playing this in my mind for many weeks, months, that I would be the first on the carpet. It’s so amazing to actually do it.”

Finally, winning a world title alongside his “best friends” and in front of his family who made the trip from Norway made it even more special.

“It’s a dream come true,” he said.

Tags: