They Said It: How the Top Pros See the IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship Unfolding

IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship week is well underway, with fewer than 48 hours to go before the women kick the racing off on Saturday morning in Nice, France. There are more than 6,500 athletes ready to race, but IRONMAN singled out 10 — the top five men and women from the pro start lists — to discuss how they are feeling ahead of the event. Here is what each of them said and how they see the weekend’s races playing out.

Julie Derron’s French Connection

Julie Derron may be Swiss, but she said on Thursday that she holds a place in her heart for France. It was, after all, the site where she won her Olympic silver medal back in 2024. Saturday’s race in Nice will be her second time competing at the 70.3 World Championship, with the first coming in 2024 in Taupo, New Zealand.

“I really hit the wall there,” she said. Derron said her issues in Taupo came down to nutrition, noting that she hopes to “fuel better” on Saturday.

As for the course itself, she said she has spent “a lot of time in the mountains,” including a recent ride during which it rained. While this outing wasn’t the most comfortable, she said it gave her confidence moving forward after effectively navigating the steep uphill and matching downhill in wet, slick conditions.

Solveig Løvseth Won’t Win (According to Her)

It’s rare that a professional athlete — let alone a world champion — will come out and say they cannot win an event or competition, but that is exactly what Norway’s Solveig Løvseth did on Thursday at the pro press conference in Nice. When asked about her chances on Saturday, the 2025 IRONMAN World Champion said she did not see herself crossing the line in first place.

“I don’t really think I can win this race, if I’m being honest,” Løvseth said. She added that she thinks she can “do well,” noting in a separate interview after the press conference that she would be happy with a top-five finish. (Løvseth finished sixth at last year’s 70.3 worlds in Marbella, Spain.)

While she is not the most confident, she did say she felt the same in Kona last year — just before winning the whole thing.

Taylor Knibb’s Experiment

After spending her 2025 season solely racing middle- and long-distance triathlons, three-time 70.3 world champion Taylor Knibb of the U.S. decided to mix things up this year. She has still competed at T100, IRONMAN and 70.3 events in 2026, but she has added short-course triathlons back into the mix, racing a pair of WTCS and two world cup races so far this season.

When asked at the press conference how she thinks the variety in racing will impact her performance in Nice (and beyond in Kona), she replied with a shrug.

“It’s all an experiment,” she said. “My team and I really have no idea how it will go.”

With that said, she did note that she thinks she “really gained a lot” from jumping back into short-course racing this season. She may be a three-time 70.3 world champion, but she was hesitant to say whether or not she is one of the women to beat on Saturday.

“We’ll see,” she said. “There are a lot of other strong women. […] I think it’s a very stacked field and everyone has a chance. […] It’s going to be a very dynamic race.”

Marjolaine Pierré’s Home Race

The deputy mayor of Nice spoke to get the press conference underway and welcome the athletes, and he made special mention of Marjolaine Pierré, who not only races for France, but calls Nice home. This gives her the unique opportunity to compete for a world title in front of friends and family on home soil.

“I just love to race with so many people I love,” she said. “It’s going to be such an amazing experience.”

When training from home, has had a lot of time to practice riding the arduous bike course, often going with her boyfriend. She said on Thursday that he told her “no one” will be able to follow her if she rides on Saturday how she has ridden in their training sessions. That was her quoting him, though, not her saying that of herself. She followed it up with her own thoughts.

“I don’t know if he is right,” she said. She continued, adding with a laugh, “I’ll make sure if he’s wrong to really finish him.”

Kat Matthews is Ready to Race

The U.K.’s Kat Matthews has five second-place finishes at world championships — two in 70.3s and three in full-distance IRONMAN racing. Everyone clearly thinks she is due for a win, because she said a question a lot of people ask her is, “When will you get that world title?”

While she said she has previously gone into big races with “so much confidence and bravado,” believing she is the woman who will break the tape, this year is different.

“Being super honest, I don’t have […] this lion’s attitude of, ‘Yeah, I’m going to fight for the win.'” That doesn’t mean she is lacking confidence across the board, she is simply keeping her expectations in check when considering the depth of the rest of the women’s field.

“I have the confidence that I can execute a race on a big stage,” she said.

Stop Tagging Kristian Blummenfelt on Social Media

Norway’s Kristian Blummenfelt said on Thursday that he is tired of seeing videos from last year’s sprint finish in Marbella, where he lost the 70.3 world title in a sprint finish with Belgium’s Jelle Geens. Since then, he said he has seen the clip of Geens pulling away and breaking the tape countless times. To make matters worse, he said people online will tag him in the video.

“You can post it, but you don’t have to tag me,” he said with a laugh. That part of the conversation was all in good fun, but it is clear that Blummenfelt wants more than second place this year. A win and sharing the podium with his compatriots and training partners, Gustav Iden and Casper Stornes, would be even better, but he said he does not think a Norwegian sweep will be easy to come by this time in Nice. (That trio finished first, second and third in Nice at the IRONMAN World Championship last year.)

“In a 70.3, there are so many guys who are competitive,” he said. “Doing a [podium sweep] will be difficult, but not impossible.”

Gustav Iden’s Renewed Confidence

Iden won his first world title in 2019, and it was on the same course he’ll be racing on Sunday. He said that in his build for Nice over the last little while, he had been struggling with confidence, but that has changed since arriving in town.

“I didn’t quite have the self-belief that I could win this one,” he said. “But  […] everything about this place, it makes me feel that I can be the one that’s on top of the podium.”

Iden was asked about working with his teammates, Blummenfelt and Stornes, but he said the course in Nice and the shorter 70.3 format is not ideal for that sort of plan.

“It is just too much happening [on this course],” he said. “It will be extremely dynamic.”

Casper Stornes’s Return to Nice

It was just about a year ago that Stornes ran his way to the top of the podium at the IRONMAN World Championship in Nice.

“It’s nice to be back,” he said. “I’ve been looking forward to it.”

Since his win last year, he has not missed the podium in any race he has entered. He finished third in Marbella last November, third at 70.3 Oceanside and at IRONMAN Texas earlier this year, and he won the IRONMAN European Championship in Frankfurt in June.

“I can’t stop that streak now,” he said with a chuckle. “But, yeah, it’s going to be hard.”

Not only will the racing itself be hard, he added, but the competition. He said he expects it to be “quite tight,” as there are “a lot of athletes who can fight for the podium.”

Marten Van Riel

Belgium’s Marten Van Riel has a streak of his own that he hopes to keep going on Sunday — he has never lost a 70.3. When asked about this, he had a modest response.

“There’s no 70.3 World Championship in there, so that might be a difficult one to continue the streak,” he said. Like the Norwegians, Van Riel has good memories from Nice, as he finished just behind them in fourth last year at his first IRONMAN World Championship.

He ran with the Norwegians and several other athletes for a long chunk of the marathon last year, but he said he hopes this race will look a little different by the time they hit the run course.

“That train, I think it looked very nice on social media,” he said, “but I hope to be a couple minutes in front [this time].”

Jelle Geens Goes for Three

No man has ever won three 70.3 world titles, but Geens has a shot this weekend. (Two women — Knibb and Daniela Ryf — have achieved this feat.) He comes to Nice as the two-time defending champion, but he said on Thursday that he isn’t resting on his laurels.

“[Those are] great memories, but we all start from scratch,” he said. “Just because I won last year doesn’t mean I get a one-minute head start here. […] It’s a new race on Sunday.”

His expectations may also be a bit more measured due to how his season has looked so far. Before competing at 70.3 Zell am See at the end of August, he had last raced in April at IRONMAN Texas (where he recorded a DNF). He spent months rehabbing a femoral shaft stress reaction.

“It takes a long time to get fit again,” he said. “I was focusing on that rather than just trying to race.”

Geens acknowledge that his smaller frame (compared to many other top male IRONMAN athletes) could be beneficial on the hilly Nice bike course, but he said he isn’t going to bank on that being the difference on Sunday.

“I think it’s a very competitive star field,” he said. “when it’s a world championship […] field and level, you lose a lot of time very early.”

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