We Noticed: Look Who’s Heading Back to Kona! Challenge Israman Results, and More

This year marks the 20-year anniversary since Germany’s Normann Stadler took his second title at the IRONMAN World Championship. It’ll also mark Stadler’s return to racing an IRONMAN at all — an impressive feat. In 2004 Stadler dominated the day as earned his first world title, taking an 11-minute win over defending champ Peter Reid. In 2005 Stadler’s anguish was caught by the NBC cameras as he struggled to fix a flat tire out on the Queen K, but a year later he would come back and win again, this time in a pressure-cooker of a race that saw him finish just 74 seconds ahead of Chris McCormack. (The Aussie would set the stage for his first Kona title a year later at the press conference after Stadler’s close win, getting under the German’s skin by declaring himself “the world’s best long-distance athlete,” which seemed to put the German off his game and led to a DNF the following year.)

Stadler would never finish on the podium again in Kona, but his track record on the Big Island was impressive, including a third and two fourth-place finishes. Unfortunately his triathlon career ended after a major health scare – emergency surgery revealed a damaged aortic valve and a 7 cm aortic aneurysm.

Bob Babbitt caught up Stadler, who will return to Kona “for the joy and challenge” this October, in this “Breakfast with Bob” interview – you can check it out below.

Challenge Israman Results

In addition to Challenge Sir Bani Yas, which we covered, there was another Challenge Family event in the Middle East last weekend – Challenge Israman. I covered that event a few times before it became part of the Challenge Family, and can confirm that it’s an incredibly tough course that features a 10 km climb that takes athletes up 650 m of climbing.

This year’s half-distance race was won for the third time in a row by Germany’s Marcel Bolbat, while the women’s race was won by Israel’s Hadas Mazar.

Bolbat found himself in a tough battle through the swim and bike with Itamar Eshad, who hit T2 just 23 seconds behind the German and would take the lead for a short time on the bike before the German pulled away to break his own course record by five seconds.

Mazar would pull clear on the bike after trailing swim leader Hadar Shahar, and then open up more time on the rest of the field on the run to finish well ahead of runner-up Inbar Zahavi.

There was also a full-distance race, which saw Israel’s Antonina Reznikov take her eighth Israman win in 11:57:04, while countryman Almog Elazari took the men’s title in 8:47:57.

Half-distance

Men:

Women:

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Supertri Announces Pro Series Races

The Supertri Pro Series will include three draft-legal, sprint-distance races starting with Austin, Texas on May 25, Blenheim Palace in the UK on June 6 and Toronto, Canada on July 26. The top three finishers from each race will qualify for the Supertri Pro Series Final, which will be raced over the Supertri format. There’s no word on when or where the final will be.

According to today’s release, “the Supertri Pro series Final will carry the largest single-day prize purse in the sport with more than $800,000 on the line.” The prize money for each of the Pro Series events will go 10 deep “to encourage development in the sport.”

The athletes who qualify will “join Supertri’s all-star central athlete roster” at the Final event, which means we’re not likely to see some of the biggest names in the sport competing in Austin, Blenheim Palace or Toronto, but does set up a big showdown for the big money, whenever that final does happen. It’s also interesting to note that the athletes will be competing as individuals at the Final – there’s no team competition this time around.

Here’s the breakdown of the prize money for the various events:

Supertri Pro Series Final (per gender): 1st: $100,000 / 2nd: $75,000 / 3rd: $60,000 / 4th: $45,000 / 5th: $30,000 / 6th: $25,000 / 7th: $20,000 / 8th: $17,500 / 9th: $15,000 / 10th: $14,000

Supertri Pro Series (per gender): 1st: $5,000 / 2nd: $3,500 / 3rd: $2,000 / 4th-10th: $1,000 each

“By unifying professional and amateur racing, we aim to deliver the next level of inspiration to amateur triathletes and bring the short course triathlon community closer together,” says Supertri CEO and co-founder Michael D’hulst. “Our unified events underscore Supertri’s ability to put on premium event experiences, respond to what our professional athletes need, foster opportunities for elite athlete development through qualification, and will see us take the next stage of digital-first innovation to meet the demands of a modern global audience, all while building a sustainable platform for the long-term growth of the sport.”

Gravel Cycling Hall of Fame 2026 Inductees

Today the 2026 inductees to the Gravel Cycling Hall of Fame were announced – this year the group includes:

• Jim Cummins, the co-founder of Unbound Gravel’s predecessor, the Dirty Kanza 200. That event grew from 34 riders in 2006. By 2018 a lottery system was required to fill the 2,500 slots for the race – Unbound Gravel is the world’s largest gravel cycling event.

• Paul Errington has been “one of the key figures in the global proliferation of gravel events.” He hosted his first gravel event, the Dirty Reiver, in 2016 and is the owner of the Grinduro gravel series, which hosts thousands of riders a year at events around the world.

• Meg Fisher, a Paralympic gold, silver and bronze medalist, turned her sights to gravel bike racing, taking para titles at Unbound Gravel, Gravel Worlds, Rebecca’s Private Idaho and SBT GVL. An advocate for creating para categories at events, has been instrumental in creating “inclusive spaces at gravel events across the country.”

• Kristen Legan has earned multiple Unbound 200 podiums in addition to the overall win at the 2023 Unbound XL race. She’s since become an accomplished coach and now works with leading brands in the industry including Shimano and Lazer Helmets “to advance and promote the sport of cycling.”

Today’s announcement also included a new award, the Gravel Cycling Hall of Fame Athlete of the Year, which went to Matt Beers and Rosa Kloser. The Community Impact Award goes to Chase Wark.

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