West finishes the IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship in Taupo, New Zealand. Photo: Kevin Mackinnon

Jason West was a big enough name in the world of multisport at the beginning of 2023 – from 2019 to 2022 he’d won five IRONMAN 70.3 races. In 2023, though, West didn’t just add a another 70.3 win to his resume (along with a win at Clash Miami), he proved that he could compete with the world’s best thanks to a runner-up finish to Leo Bergere in Oceanside, a runner-up finish to Jan Frodeno (just 28 seconds down from the German) at the PTO US Open, and a third-place finish at the PTO Asian Open in Singapore.

Renowned as one of the sport’s premier runners – he sits atop the PTO run rankings – West appeared ready to continue his steady move towards the elite levels of long-distance racing at the beginning of 2024. The 2015 national collegiate champion (he did a kinesiology degree at Penn State) truly turned his sights from making it to the Olympics to focusing on long-course during the pandemic, and his 2023 season seemed to foreshadow his chance to achieve his dream of winning the IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship. Unfortunately, he ended up getting sick in the days before the race in Lahti, Finland, one of the few disappointments in his otherwise successful year of racing.

He rolled into 2024 sitting third in the PTO World Rankings and armed with a T100 contract, but found himself struggling for much of the first half of the year as he dealt with tendon issues around his pelvis.

“The first six or seven months of the year, I was probably in pain everyday,” West said in an interview a few days before the worlds in Taupo. Heading into the T100 races while injured wasn’t exactly the best way to take on the world’s best triathletes.

“Racing the T100 series, every single race felt like a world championship field,” West continued. “These big races where everybody is there, you can have a good day and come 10th … I’ve had performances this year that would’ve won most of the races in my career … and I’d be back in like eighth or 10th place. I think at some of the lower level races, there’s lots of points throughout the race that just aren’t that hard. There are some parts that might be tough, but the swims are generally not as hard, and there’s times on the bike where you’re not pushing that hard. But these races, you’re just full gas the whole way and that’s the norm.”

After trying to hold things together for months, West was finally forced to take some time off of running to try and get over the injury. Since he had a big break through August and September, instead of feeling like he needed a rest at the end of the season, West felt like he was just getting going as he went into the 70.3 worlds in Taupo. He arrived in New Zealand after a solid fifth-place finish at T100 Lake Las Vegas, but then had a tougher day at T100 Dubai, where he finished 13th.

Instead of getting that decent performance he was hoping for at the 70.3 worlds, the day ended up “summing up (his) year,” as he posted on Instagram. He was a bit behind where he’d hoped after the swim, then got dropped by the big group he was with on the bike, only to get passed by another group towards the end of the ride and getting a drafting penalty when they came around, setting the stage for a disappointing 28th-place finish.

Renewed Focus

Photo: Kevin Mackinnon

The tough year of racing in 2024 forced West to evaluate his approach to the sport.

“You take lessons from both sides of it,” he said. “When things go well, it’s also important to look at what was I doing that led me to have things go well. Or, if things haven’t gone well this year, what did I change or what was different in my life? It also gives you a little bit more perspective of what you want, what you don’t want. When you’re winning and you’re on top of the world, it probably masks a lot of things and you’re like, everything is just great. But when things start going wrong, you look to figure out why. I think it’s made me take a step back and just focus on what’s important, and how I want to do the sport. Not just going after specific goals, or I have to win this race, or that series, or something like that. It certainly made me think about how I want do it, what I want to get out of it and, maybe just making some changes for longevity and things like that.”

West’s answers to those questions? He’s determined to keep pushing himself, ensure he is enjoying the sport, and make some changes for 2025, including doing the “year totally different and thinking about what excites me and what’s fun.”

That process starts with this weekend’s IRONMAN 70.3 Pucon. Whether or not that will be the first stop on a season focused on the IRONMAN Pro Series is very much up in the air. West acknowledges that a full-distance race is in his future, but whether or not it will come this year remains to be seen.

“It’s something that I know I want to do eventually,” he said. “It’s such a big part of the sport. The pinnacle really is the Ironman World Championship. I mean, it’s the first triathlon I ever saw on TV, and know that I want to do that eventually. It’s just that I want to respect the distance, respect the race and respect what my competitors are doing. So I know that I can’t just hop in one and expect it to go well. I need to put in the appropriate training and really prepare.”

Partners

The upside of West’s breakthrough year was he was able to sign a number of excellent partnerships, many of which will run through the end of 2025. West was careful to think through what he was doing on the sponsor front during 2023, and enlisted the help of former pro Alicia Kaye to manage those partnerships.

“I feel like I have an incredible team around me and that’s become even more obvious as I’ve had a difficult year and they’ve all just been so supportive, and there’s a lot of belief in me,” he said. “So it feels like I have a super-good team around me that’s gonna be there to enjoy the highs, but also to continue to encourage me through the tough times.”

His only changes for 2025 on the sponsorship front is he’s signed with Goodlife Nutrition.

adding to his previous deal with Goodlife Brands, and replacing his previous nutrition sponsor.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Jason West (@jasonwesttri)

“I’ve really been able to build a team around me that’s focused on performance,” West continued. “That’s from Ventum helping me with a new bike, my position, and what equipment to run, or JACKROO trying to get the fastest fabrics and doing a custom suit. Every brand we have is playing a specific role and helping me create the ultimate performance.”

New Arrival

There is one other big change coming for West in 2025 – he and his wife Jessica have announced that they will be expecting a new addition to the family.

“I’m excited to be a dad and it just gives you a different perspective on life and a different purpose,” West said. “I’m not going to be able to wake up and drag along ’cause all I have to do is my training. I’m going to have other things that I have to do. And I think that’s gonna be really awesome. Ultimately, this is the most important thing, being a dad, and it’s just really exciting. It’s something I’ve looked forward to for a long time and now it felt like the time was right.”

While congrats might be in order, there’s some time before training days will be oriented around parenting. First up for 2025 is Sunday’s race in Pucon, where West arrives as one of the pre-race favorites. You can see the full pro list here.

The post Jason West Resets for 2025 first appeared on Slowtwitch News.

Matt Burton hugs his son after winning the IRONMAN Asia-Pacific Championship Cairns. Photo: Kevin Mackinnon

For most of the last 30 years I have been at a lot of races in my capacity as a journalist, photographer and race announcer, but 2024 will go down as one of the most memorable, without a doubt. It marked my first Olympics as a journalist, which was certainly a highlight, but there were a lot of other notable events that made the year special. As we wrap up our 2024 recaps, I figured I would share some photos and stories that were particularly poignant for me. I’ll break the year up into three sections – this first story will look at the first half of the year, the second will focus on a busy summer, and the third will look back at a crazy-busy fall.

Here we go:

Clash Miami

Ben Kanute finishes the bike during T100 Miami. Photo: Kevin Mackinnon

Even race-director extraordinaire Andre Lapar had to admit that the Clash Miami weekend involved almost too much racing. There was a World Triathlon Americas Cup race, the T100 race, all the Clash events (sprint, kids, long-distance tri, etc.) and the Redline Relay bike race. I was on deck as the lead announcer for all the races other than the T100, but I kept myself busy that day with my camera, covering the event for Triathlon Magazine.

One of the highlights of the weekend was a great interview I did with American Olympic medalist Katie Zaferes, who was in the midst of a spirited bid to earn a spot on the competitive American Olympic team after becoming a mom in 2022. (I have no shots of the Americas Cup race – I was busy on the mic that day!) I also got to do a bunch of interviews for Credo Tri, including fun chats with Ben Kanute (hence the photo above.)

UCI Track Nations Cup

My son was part of the national cycling team for many years, so I’ve been shooting cycling events for a number of years. We were really lucky to have many of the world’s top cyclists competing in Milton, just 30 mins drive from my house, as they competed for valuable Olympic qualifying points. While the American team (pictured above), would end up sixth in Milton, they would take gold in Paris a few months later.

IRONMAN Lanzarote

Anne Haug on her way to breaking Paula Newby-Fraser’s course record at IRONMAN Lanzarote. Photo: Kevin Mackinnon

Anyone who knows me knows how much I love Lanzarote, one of the Canary Islands just off the coast of Africa. I’ve been going to the island since 1998. This year was a special one for the IRONMAN, as Anne Haug put together one of the most incredible races I have ever seen. Haug’s 9:06:40 topped Newby-Fraser’s 1995 course record of 9:24:39. Haug ran a 2:49:08 marathon after completing one of the world’s toughest bike courses, finishing 14th overall. Only two men ran faster than she did on race day.

Rosie Wild. Photo: Kevin Mackinnon

As amazing as Haug’s performance was that day, another highlight for me was getting to meet Rosie Wild. She raced in Lanzarote as a pro triathlete and qualified for Nice thanks to a fourth-place finish. Wild is the first woman to have passed the British Armed Forces gruelling Parachute Regiment’s selection test. The woman is literally a real-life version of GI Jane, and has proven to be every bit as tough as a triathlete. You can read my feature story on Wild here.

Photo supplied by Rosie Wild.

Escape from Alcatraz

Photo: Kevin Mackinnon

I am almost embarrassed to admit that despite having been in the sport for as long as I have, until last year I’d never been to one of the sport’s most iconic events. In addition to covering the T100 race, I got to support a couple of athletes I coach and take in the race. It truly is a bucket-list event.

IRONMAN Asia-Pacific Championship Cairns

Matt Burton wins in Cairns. Photo: Kevin Mackinnon

Hannah Berry wins in Cairns. Photo: Kevin Mackinnon

I’ll definitely get a “destination” story up on IRONMAN Cairns over the next little bit, but my second trip to the event offered another chance to check out the Great Barrier Reef, but also a chance to watch one of the year’s most inspiring races. I used the picture of Matt Burton hugging his son after his win in Cairns as the feature photo for this story because his was a truly incredible story.

Four months before, just months after winning IRONMAN Western Australia in 2023, Burton went in for surgery for a deep bone infection in his foot. As he was put under for a third surgery in February, Burton was told that he might wake up without a foot if they didn’t think they could clean out the infection.

Suffice it to say that the surgery was a success, and Burton bounced back. It wasn’t easy, though.

“Then it was the slow crawl back where every day was the PB,” he said after the race. “When you have 10 weeks off, you start from zero. You’ve got no fitness. But the beauty is muscle memory. Ohh. Muscle does remember, and it just took ten weeks to remember before I really started to feel a little bit more myself. And then I decided to come here (two Cairns) two weeks earlier and it was the best decision in my life.” 

You think?

Canadian National Track and Field Championships

Mohammed Ahmed on his way to the win in the 5000 m at the 2024 Track and Field Olympic Trials. Photo: Kevin Mackinnon

While my first “serious” sport was tennis, I ran through university, so track has always been close to my heart. When I had the chance to shoot some of the nationals in Montreal at the end of June, I jumped at it. The highlight was watching Mo Ahmed run 13:10:99 to win the 5,000 m. It’s the fastest 5,000 m race I have ever watched in person. Ahmed would finish a heartbreaking fourth in the 10,000 m in Paris, and would fall in the qualifying rounds for the 5,000.

World Triathlon Para Series Montreal

Canadian Leanne Taylor. Photo: Kevin Mackinnon

After shooting this event, the final Paralympic qualifier, I was truly regretting not having sought accreditation for the Paralympics in Paris last summer. While the day was very rainy, it was one of the most inspiring race days of the year for me.

The post Looking Back at 2024: Thoughts and Pictures from a Huge Year of Racing Part 1 first appeared on Slowtwitch News.

To recap thus far, we’ve awarded the following:

Triathlete of the Year: Taylor Knibb

Long Course Athletes of the Year: Kat Matthews, Patrick Lange

Short Course Athlete of the Year: Cassandre Beaugrand

Ryan: To me, Kevin, this feels like it should be a two horse race between Alex Yee and Hayden Wilde. Kinda like the Olympics and WTCS season all over again.

Kevin: Yep, I do believe this is down to those two. I would love to add Léo Bergère to the discussion, but once again I feel like I’d just be throwing out a name then quickly setting myself up to discount it. (He was beaten by both the frontrunners at the Olympics, and finished behind Wilde for the overall supertri title, too.)

I think it’s hard not to put Alex Yee at the top of the list based on his Olympic win and then (finally) winning the world championship title. Granted, Wilde beat him at the Championship Final, but after two years of losing the world title thanks to a disastrous finals appearance, I think Yee’s one and only goal at that race was to not screw up. Yee also won when it most counted – he won every World Triathlon race he entered except the final. While he didn’t take the supertri title, Yee did manage two impressive wins in that series – taking both Boston and NEOM. (I captured this shot – and the one above – of the Boston finish – to me it pretty much expresses Yee’s dominance over Wilde when it counted the most.)

Supertri Boston. Photo: Kevin Mackinnon

If we were to have an award for the year’s most exciting racer, it would have to go to Wilde. He certainly went for it all in Paris, setting up a truly classic race. He closed the season with a solid supertri season, and finally got the big day we’ve long expected at the World Triathlon Championship Final. While his Taupō performance doesn’t count on this front, he sure did help make that day an exciting one, too.

Am I missing something, Ryan? Is there a reason to give this award to Hayden Wilde that I am not seeing?

Wilde on the run at the IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship. Photo: Kevin Mackinnon

Ryan: Yes, there is!

If we are looking line-by-line at their race results this year, you wind up seeing that Wilde and Yee split the supertri season against one another – they beat each other twice. But whereas Wilde was extremely competitive at all of the supertri events (his worst finish of the year was third in Toulouse), the same could not be said for Yee. He was 8th in Chicago, and 12th in London. Yee was never really in contention for the supertri standings crown.

Then when you factor in Wilde’s races with Yee in WTCS and the Olympics, it’s a much closer battle there than it was with supertri. Yes, Yee won more. But it’s not like Wilde was getting his doors blown off. And Wilde did, indeed, win the Grand Final, with a very sizable margin of victory.

I do put a bit of a premium on being able to showcase racecraft across multiple disciplines, even within our definitions of course length. Wilde did that more than anybody else last year.

Kevin: So, if I have this straight, Alex Yee, the Olympic and world champion, shouldn’t be our short course male athlete of the year because he had two “bad” supertri races and finished third at the World Triathlon Championship Finals? He beat Wilde in Cagliari. He beat Wilde in Paris, at the biggest draft-legal/ short course race of the year. He was well ahead of Wilde in Wehei (Wilde was 1:40 back there – further behind than Wilde was in Torremolinos), too. He also managed to beat Wilde at two of the five supertri races. To me, if you’re going to vote for Wilde, you’re saying that the supertri series means more in the big picture than the Olympics or the World Triathlon Championship Series. 

I get the added premium on Wilde doing so well at 70.3 worlds, and he also won the Laguna Phuket Triathlon, but I am not sure we should be counting those results when we’re handing out the short course athlete of the year.

Good grief … another vote? I thought I was going to be safe on this one, as with the women!

Ryan: Didn’t you know I went to law school? I can argue just about anything and make some type of reasonable case out of it…

I think, similarly to how we did the women’s calculus, it means we should weigh the supertri and WTCS season championships similarly. So the tiebreaker comes down to the Olympics. And, well, Yee beat Wilde, despite Wilde throwing everything he had at him.

Therefore, much to the happiness of a couple of our *ahem* vocal forum members, Alex Yee is our men’s Short Course Athlete of the Year.

Kevin: Great choice, Ryan. I do admire your ability to argue almost anything. And, while I’m not sure I’m willing to weigh supertri and WTCS equally, I’ll happily concur that Alex Yee is the right choice.

The post 2024 Slowtwitch Awards: Men’s Short Course Athlete of the Year first appeared on Slowtwitch News.

The IRONMAN Pro Series awards ceremony with Jackie Hering, Kat Matthews and Lotte Wilms. Photo: Kevin Mackinnon

You’d be smiling, too, if you had just won yourself a nice US$200,000 bonus for winning the IRONMAN Pro Series. We were on hand as Kat Matthews was handed that big check after a stellar season that included a runner-up finish at both the IRONMAN World Championship in Nice and the IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship in Taupo. That bonus helped Matthews to earn a total of $549,000 last year, “the best earning season of any of the years I have looked at,” wrote Thorsten Radde, the man behind TriRating.com, who posted his annual year-end prize money ranking on Dec. 31.

It hardly comes as a surprise, then, that during an interview last week he was quick to agree with me that there’s never been a better time to be a pro triathlete.

“Oh, totally,” Radde said. “And, to me, Kat (Matthews) is an example. Martin Van Riel is an example. The amount of money that’s available in the middle distance, it’s never been better before. And, overall, it’s never been better before.”

Matthews finished just ahead of Taylor Knibb on the prize money ranking ($549,000 to $517,300), with Knibb earning the lion’s share of her prize money through the PTO – $410,000 from her four series wins and the overall T100 title. Van Riel, the winner of the men’s T100 series, took home $401,000 from the PTO, earning an additional $9,500 from World Triathlon and $2,500 from Ironman to take home a total of $413,000. Ashleigh Gentle was fourth in the overall standings with $354,427, while Kyle Smith rounded out the top five with $326,848.

Radde, who also consults with the Professional Triathletes Organisation (PTO) and has been a key player in the development of the ranking system used by the PTO, points out that the T100 Triathlon World Tour and the IRONMAN Pro Series “have created a significant addition of prize money into long-distance triathlon.”

That boost in prize money allowed 49 athletes to make over $100,000 last year, up from 29 athletes in 2023.

Ranking Systems

A win at IRONMAN 70.3 Western Australia helped Gregory Barnaby take the men’s IRONMAN Pro Series title. Photo: Kevin Mackinnon

It should hardly come as a suprise that the man who has been so involved in the PTO ranking system, which takes into consideration the depth of field for each race along with the difficulty of the course, would not be as impressed with the considerably simpler IRONMAN Pro Series system. That Pro Series rankings start with a set number of points for the winner of each event – 5,000 for IRONMAN races, 2,500 for 70.3. (The world championship points start at 6,000 for the full and 3,000 for the 70.3.) The following athletes’ points decrease by a point for every second they are behind – hence the “every second counts” promo the Series has used. (You can read more about the points system here.)

“Obviously the PTO system is a lot more complicated than what IRONMAN has done,” Radde said. “To me it was too-simple a system, and I think it still is. But it’s been working well from a marketing viewpoint. That model of every second counts, and the simple way of being able to count down the points worked well.”

Radde also wasn’t a fan of having three full-distance races count because “it forces people to do a lot of racing if they want to do well.”

“But that’s a discussion that’s older than the Pro series,” he said with a laugh.

More Competitive Than Ever

Do the numbers back up the feeling that pro racing is more competitive than ever? Radde sure thinks so.

“I mean, you just have to go back to Kona Racing in 2010, or 2005,” he said. “You had a handful of people who would win it. And you could be reasonably certain that three of them would place on the podium. I don’t think we’re at that point anymore. You have easily 10 to 15 people who could contend for the podium, and the races are so close and so variable in how they develop. We’ve got the deepest fields, we’ve got the closest races.”

Radde sites a chat with fellow German Frederik Funk as proof of just how competitive the races have become. Funk didn’t win any races in 2024, but felt like his fifth-place performances at T100 London and T100 Ibiza were likely good enough to have won him a PTO event in 2022 or 2023.

It isn’t just the T100 races, either. Radde points to IRONMAN Cozumel, where Marten Van Riel made his full-distance debut.

“I guess in almost all instances five or 10 years ago, if he (Van Riel) crashes and loses some time, he would have been able to run himself back onto the podium,” Radde said. “But no longer. Even if there are names that you’ve never heard before, they’re still able to go super fast and do a sub-eight in their first Ironman, which was unheard of a couple years ago.” 

Short Course Racing

Cassandre Beaugrand competes in the mixed relay at the Olympics. Photo: Kevin Mackinnon

Olympic champ Cassandre Beaugrand topped the short course prize money ranking this year, taking home $219,875 from World Triathlon and SuperTri. Hayden Wilde was second on that list ($198,575), although he augmented his earnings with IRONMAN events and earned $247,575 in total last year. Like Beaugrand, the men’s Olympic champ, Alex Yee, earned all his money through short course racing and ended up third on the list at $162,889.

One last stat we’ll throw at you from Radde’s reporting: “The total number of athletes who earned prize money has been almost unchanged (818 in 2023 vs 823 in 2024).”

The post It’s Never Been a Better Time to Be a Pro Triathlete … And the Numbers Prove It first appeared on Slowtwitch News.

Photo: Kevin Mackinnon

No, she won’t be part of any Triathlete of the Year conversations. But that’s not to say that The Netherlands’ Els Visser didn’t enjoy a spectacular 2024 that saw her race in 16 races that were T100-distance or longer. She won Challenge Wanaka in February after finishing third in Tauranga in January. She was second at IRONMAN New Zealand, third at T100 Singapore, won Ironman 70.3 Philippines, won Challenge Taiwan, finished fifth at IRONMAN Hamburg, was third at Challenge Roth (in 8:24, no less!), took second at IRONMAN Vitoria-Gasteiz, second at Challenge Xiamen and rounded out the season with a sixth at IRONMAN 70.3 Western Australia and 17th at the IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship. (Yes, I know that’s three short of 16 races – there was a 10th and a fifth at 70.3 Tallinn and Zell am See, along with a DNF in Nice, but we’ll get to that.)

To give you an idea of just how much racing that is, consider the fact that we’ve been raving about just how much Kat Matthews achieved in 2024, and she started 11 races last year.

Here’s the crazy thing about Els Visser, though. Once you’ve heard her story, it hardly comes as a surprise that she would 1) take on such a challenging schedule and 2) that she’d excel through it.

Red Bull Documentary

Sometime in 2025 we’ll have a chance to get even more details about Visser’s experience in 2014 when a documentary by her sponsor, Red Bull, is released. The producers have been following Visser since 2019, gathering footage for the show, which will look back at the harrowing experience Visser and 24 other crew and tourists endured during boat trip from Lombok to Flores in Bali, Indonesia. (Visser describes the trip in her own words here.)

Visser was just finishing up a gynaecology and obstetrics internship in Bali. It was her last week before returning to the Netherlands to finish up her medical training, and she decided to go to Flores to do some scuba diving. A few days in, during a storm, the boat went down, leaving the five-member crew and 20 tourists scrambling to survive.

“We had one lifeboat without a motor or a paddle, but it was something for six people to sit in,” Visser remembers. “Other people were sitting on the roof of the sinking boat or were in the ocean around the lifeboat, and we were just waiting for morning.”

“We waited the whole night in the dark ocean,” she continued. “Balancing on the sinking boat, just hanging around in the ocean and then the sun came up and we started to see that islands in the far distance.” 

Even though the water was 26-27 degrees C (80-82 F), Visser was freezing as the sun started to rise. After a few more hours, she decided to try to swim to the island they could see in the distance. There were a few others who tried to go with her, but in the end she would be separated from the others – it was just her and another woman from New Zealand who eventually made it. They swam for about eight hours, getting there just before sunset. Once there, they realized they were on a volcanic island (Sangeang Api) with nothing on it. They found about a half-cup of fresh water, and then started to save their own urine, realizing that they would likely have to start drinking that over the next few days.

Luckily enough they were rescued the following day, and eventually all but two of the people from the boat were saved. Two Spanish passengers, who ironically were sailors themselves, were never found.

A week after the ordeal Visser was back at school, struggling to deal with the trauma. She would eventually turn to running to clear her mind. She did her first marathon in October, 2015, finishing in 3:30. Just under a year later she did her first triathlon – a sprint event in Amsterdam, which she won. Someone at work told her about IRONMAN, and she figured that she would be best to train for one while she was doing her PhD (since she didn’t have “night or weekend shifts”).

That led her to IRONMAN Switzerland in 2017, where she finished fourth overall. Six months later she was in Australia competing in her first pro race – she finished 10th at IRONMAN Western Australia.

Heavy Race Schedule

Visser has been working with Trisutto coaches for much of her professional career, but began working with Brett Sutton himself in 2021. Last year she competed 12 times in a season that included wins at IRONMAN New Zealand, Challenge Almere and Challenge Canberra. Visser feels that all this racing works for her.

“I’ve been training super continuously without interruptions,” she said in an interview a couple of days before IRONMAN 70.3 Western Australia. “I recover very quickly from my races. And I also really believe that each race makes me better. It gives me another experience and, with the philosophy of training we do, we don’t really taper into a race and after a race we continue training.”

“I really believe that every race is another experience, another challenge to make me physically and mentally stronger,” she continued. “And, in the end, we are here to race, to challenge ourselves and to test ourselves. So, I just enjoy racing a lot.”

Visser can also point to the success she’s enjoyed from the busy schedule. A week after her third-place finish in Roth, she was second to Matthews at IRONMAN Vitoria-Gasteiz. In both cases she points out that those were the best possible results she could have hoped for – beating Anne Haug on her record-setting day in Roth (or Laura Philipp, the eventual IRONMAN world champion) wasn’t likely to happen. Neither was beating a super-fit and fast Matthews in Spain the following week.

“I think, at this moment, it is still about getting my run to the next level, getting my swim to the next level, and that every race just makes me stronger,” she said.

Visser’s body did finally betray her heading into Nice when she was slowed by a stress fracture in her fibula that forced her to pull out of the race. She was able to bounce back to take second at Challenge Xiamen a few months later, then rounded out the season with sixth in Busselton and 17th at the 70.3 worlds in Taupo.

Endless Situation

Photo: Kevin Mackinnon

So how does surviving a shipwreck change the life view of a professional triathlete?

“It’s fading away over the years, but it’s always in my heart,” Visser said. “And it really changed me … It was just like a super endless situation. I was just convinced that my life would come to an end. And so I was very surprised when we got rescued after two days. That’s just like the power of the human body and the mental strength. And, in such an extreme situation, somehow you just find another gear and you just don’t give up and you just find a way to battle through it. Some power. I never realized it’s a power you have physically and mentally, and that’s what I really like now in triathlon – that you have to use the same power to cross that finish line.”

“That was really an eye opener to me to discover that inner strength of our human bodies,” she continued. “And then, meanwhile, I’m just super grateful now, every day, that I’m here … I always appreciated life, but I think now I appreciate it even more. It’s living day by day, enjoying the small moments. Being grateful that I’m still here, that I have the opportunity to live my life.”

Ironically, the experience has also had an interesting affect on her approach to racing.

“I can find, sometimes, that extra gear because I’ve been through worse,” she said. “But what I find very difficult is that there’s always a safe way out. An option that you can quit a race and nothing will happen.”

“I was was in a situation that actually I had to keep swimming towards that island because otherwise I was going to die,” she said. “Actually it was pretty easy that way as well, because there was just no other option than just swimming, and then your mind is just focused … but in triathlon there’s always that safe way out.”

IRONMAN Pro Series for 2025

Visser hadn’t really intended to put much focus on the inaugural year of the IRONMAN Pro Series, but found herself in a position where she was doing well. She’ll take a different tack this year.

“Somehow I worked my way into the series and got some good points,” she said. “I think, for next year, I really want to focus on the IRONMAN Series and pick the races better strategy and really aim for it a bit more.” 

The post Think You Had a Strange Journey to Triathlon? Meet Els Visser first appeared on Slowtwitch News.

The way Matthews bounced back from that challenge, though, pretty much personifies her season – she got on a plane and flew to San Francisco, where she took second to Taylor Knibb at the T100 event the following weekend. She followed that up with yet another IRONMAN win at Vitoria-Gasteiz, then bounced back two weeks later to take third at T100 London.

Racing well week in and week out is one thing, but Matthews also proved to be at her very best when it counted, taking second at both the IRONMAN world championship events. So, while she is thrilled to have taken the Pro Series title (along with fourth in the T100 Triathlon World Tour), she was rightfully proud of her ability to race well when it really counted.

“This is the first year that the (Pro) series has been running,” she said. “I think in future years it will just grow and grow and grow and it will really draw people into this sort of multirace series. “I think to get second here (in Taupo) and second at the full IRONMAN (Nice), I think that’s what I’m really proud of.”

“I think consistency isn’t always super sexy, but … I’ve really peaked for the big races,” she continued, referring to her runner-up finish to Laura Philipp in Nice and then her second-place finish behind Taylor Knibb in Taupo. “So this race I really trained for and to come 1:15 behind Taylor, that’s a sort of PB for me, so it’s not just the consistency. I’ve been able to see those significant, key races as my pinnacle, key races.”

Comeback

It’s hard to believe that just a few years ago we were all wondering if Matthews would ever return to the highest levels of the sport. Just 10 days before the IRONMAN World Championship in Kona, Matthews was hit by a car.

“She fractured her skull, two vertebrae in her neck, her sternum, a rib and she recently also discovered she’d fractured her hip socket,” the Daily Mirror reported as she prepared to return to racing in April, 2023. “By her own admission she could have died in that crash.”

While we might all be amazed at her impressive return to the highest levels of the sport, she has very much moved on.

“You know, the first six months of recovery was more about getting back to professional racing,” she said. “Now I’m better than I ever have been. That was a PB run, you know, this year I’ve put down PB bike power, PB swim, so it’s not about getting back.  It’s more about genuine gratitude for being able to race and to have this as my job, and to be around so many people who love the sport – this is literally my dream.

Second Career

Matthews has surged to the top of the triathlon world after having served in the British Armed Forces for many years. It remains a key part of what drives her in triathlon.

“That community, and the support from the British army, it is fundamental and it makes me really believe I’m not just fighting for myself as an individual, I’m fighting for for everybody to get behind that ethos of trying to be your best,” she said. “It really motivates me. And we even have people here who are posted from the British army overseas in New Zealand coming to support the race. So it really fills my heart.” 

2025 Racing

At the post-race press conference, Matthews made reference to trying to figure out what changes needed to be made in order to beat Knibb. I couldn’t help but ask if she thought that a reduced race schedule might help.

“To be honest, I actually feel like I’ve got fitter after every race,” Matthews said. “For this race, I don’t think I was disadvantaged by a busy racing schedule. Perhaps you could say for the full IRONMAN I need to commit to slightly different training or, you know, change something up in terms of my preparation, especially for Kona, so that’s definitely something I’m going to take into 2025, but for this specific race, no, I don’t feel like my schedule impacted it.”

All of which means we’re likely to see Matthews at a lot of races again next year. Consistency might not be sexy, but it sure can make for an impressive, and it sure doesn’t hurt the bank account.

The post Kat Matthews: Consistency Might Not Be “Super Sexy,” but it Pays Off in the End first appeared on Slowtwitch News.

• Blueseventy – 2
• Orca – 2
• Sailfish – 2
• Huub – 2
• Deboer – 1
• Mako Nordic – 1

Here’s a look at the first 10 men to exit Lake Taupō and make their way to the bike:

1. Greg Harper – 21:48

Wetsuit: Blueseventy Helix

2. Josh Amberger – 22:00

Wetsuit: Orca Apex Flex

3. Léo Bergère – 22:02

Wetsuit: Mako Ultimate Torrent

4. Marc Dubrick – 22:02

Wetsuit: Blueseventy Helix

5. Wilhelm Hirsch – 22:16

Wetsuit: Sailfish G-Range 8

6. Rico Bogen – 22:18

Wetsuit: Deboer Fjord 3.0

7. Henri Schoeman – 22:19

Wetsuit: Huub Agilis II

8. Hayden Wilde – 22:20

9. Kyle Smith – 22:22

10. Jelle Geens – 22:23

Wetsuit: Huub Agilis II

Photos: Kevin Mackinnon

The post Taupō Neoprene Test: The Wetsuit Brands Worn by the 10 Fastest Swimmers at the IRONMAN 70.3 Worlds first appeared on Slowtwitch News.

Here’s a look at the wetsuits the top swimmers wore for the 1.2-mile (1.9-km) swim in Lake Taupo last Saturday – in case you’re wondering which brand led the way, it was a tie between Orca and Sailfish. Here’s the breakdown:

• Sailfish: 3
• Orca: 3
• 2XU: 1
• Zone 3: 1
• ARK Sports: 1
• Synergy: 1

1. Sara Perez Sala – 24:20

Brand: Orca

2. Lotte Wilms – 24:21

Brand: Sailfish

3. Rebecca Clark – 24:22

Brand: Sailfish

4. Marta Sanchez – 24:29

Brand: Zone 3

5. Taylor Knibb – 24:30

Brand: 2XU

6. Imogen Simmonds – 24:32

Brand: ARK Sports

7. Caroline Pohl – 24:36

Brand: Sailfish

8. Julie Derron – 24:39

Brand: Orca

9. Hanne De Vet

Brand: Orca

10. Jodie Stimpson – 24:44

Brand: Synergy

The post Taupo Swim Gear: The Top-10 Women’s Wetsuits From the IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship first appeared on Slowtwitch News.

Photos by Kevin Mackinnon

OK, things were buzzing for “ladies day” here in Taupo yesterday. It is hard to describe how much more intense, crowded and, well, buzzing Taupo was today as a roughly 3,200 men started their race in Lake Taupo. (Even the helicopter seemed to be getting in on the action, determined not to miss a second of the men’s race action.)

You can read a blow-by-blow account of today’s racing in Ryan Heisler’s race recap.

Here’s my take on the day’s action based on my view from behind the camera.

Today the waka delivered men from Ngāti Tūwharetoa and the haka ceremony once again set the stage perfectly, adding more to the unique experience and sense of community that this world championship has engendered all week.

Once we’d all been “welcomed” to the lake, it was time for the racing.

When it was time to get the racing started, once again the top seeds all lined themselves up to the left of the swim start, with defending champ Rico Bogen lining up furthest to the left.

Greg Harper, the son of former pro triathlete Dean Harper, led the men out of the water. He was about 12 seconds up on Aussie Josh Amberger and France’s Olympic bronze medalist Leo Bergere, but the pack with many of the pre-race favorites, including Hayden Wilde, Rico Bogen, Kyle Smith, Jelle Geens and Justus Nieschlag were all about 30 seconds apart.

It wasn’t long before a lead pack of eight had formed. What was surprising about the lead cyclists was that it was a bunch of short course specialists who were pushing the pace, including local hero Hayden Wilde …

… The man Wilde beat to the silver medal in Paris, Leo Bergere …

… and yet another Olympian, Jelle Geens.

Defending champion Rico Bogen was in the mix, but wasn’t making it look easy to stay with the leaders.

Surprisingly Taupo’s very own Kyle Smith wasn’t his usual aggressive self at the front of the bike. Turns out he’d had COVID last week, so was still recovering from that as he hit the race course today.

Another surprise was the impressive riding by 2016 Olympic bronze medalist Henri Schoeman, who stayed with the leaders the hard way. While the rest of the group remained pretty much bang on the legal distance (as gauged by the Race Ranger tech being used), according to IRONMAN’s Matt Lieto, who was with the lead group a lot more than I was, Schoeman was almost always about 20 m behind the wheel in front, dangling close to being dropped.

As often seems to be the case in tight races, Mathis Margirier, who was pushing the pace in the lead group for much of the ride, was the one who got a drafting penalty, effectively putting him out of contention because …

… By the 80 km point of the ride it was clear the winner was going to come from the lead group.

Wilhelm Hirsch was one of the athletes in the first chase group that was led, for most of the way, by Kristian Hogenhaug (who spent so much time at the front he would eventually get dropped by the group). Even if you weren’t with the leaders, you weren’t taking in any of the spectacular scenery along the route.

Once out on the run, Wilde surged clear. After the race Wilde admitted that the incredible crowd support made it really hard to slow down.

Jelle Geens said after the race that along the way someone in the crowd told him to “believe the Paris scenario” (Wilde cracked in the last 1,100 m of the run at the Olympics and was passed by Alex Yee.) Not long after he heard that, Wilde started to struggle ahead of him.

Meanwhile, Bergere quickly decided who couldn’t go with Wilde or Geens.

“I decided to run my own race and to try to have to the the best tempo,” the Frenchman said after the race.

Meanwhile, the race to see who would be the top German was being played out as Justus Nieschlag started to pull ahead of the defending champ …

… Rico Bogen. (In the end, Nieschlag would take fifth, with Bogen seventh.

Think this guy is happy?

“I’ve been in this sport for very long time and I actually never made the podium (at a world championship),” Geens said after the race. “I came fourth twice in short course, and now, in my first try and a middle distance and I got it.”

It might not be the last, either.

“Paris was my last short course race,” he said. “To be honest, the last year and a half was quite tough for me, mentally … So, I really want to move to middle distance and see what I can do there.”

I can let him know now – a lot.

That blazing intitial pace ended up being too much – in the end the “Paris scenario” repeated for Hayden Wilde, who truly gave it all to get across the line.

“It was brilliant,” he said of the day when being interviewed for one of New Zealand’s television networks. “I loved every moment … I gave it everything, but yeah, it’s been a long season and, you know, I put it out there. I wasn’t going to shy away from it and had a crack at it. I was not bad for my third time at this distance.”

“It seemed like every inch of the run course was covered with people supporting me,” Wilde continued. “It was hard to slow down. To have a world championship in Taupo is awesome. It’s so great for the country – everyone knows our sport right now. It was so cool to give it a crack in front of the home town.”

Another bronze medal to go along with the Paris Olympic one from earlier this year for Leo Bergere. This one came without quite as much pressure.

“In Paris I was putting a lot of pressure on myself, but I was also feeling that the whole country was expecting a medal from one of the members of the French Team,” he said after the race.

Bergere thanked the crowd for all the support after he crossed the line.

“New Zealand is such a beautiful country and people are so welcoming,” he said.

Kyle Smith thrilled the crowd with his fourth.

Ninth was more than enough to assure Gregory Barnaby of the top slot in the IRONMAN Pro Series. You can read our profile on the Italian below:

It was Olympic day on the podium at today’s 70.3 worlds. A sign of things to come?

The post The Intensity Dials Up in Taupo as the Men Take to the Course at the IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship first appeared on Slowtwitch News.

All photos by Kevin Mackinnon

The energy here in Taupo for the first IRONMAN World Championship event in New Zealand has been pretty special, but you really got a feeling of how unique this race was going to be when the “waka,” which was made up of “wahine” (women), kicked off the opening ceremonies for today’s race.

Here’s how the folks at IRONMAN described it:

When the waka arrives on the beach, Ngāti Tūwharetoa wāhine will emulate the mahi (strength) of the tāne (men) and challenge the female athletes to push themselves beyond their normal boundaries. With their kahui maunga (chiefly mountains) at their backs, their moana (inland sea) at their feet and Aotearoa’s most significant awa to their side (Waikato River), they will uphold the traditions of their forefathers and mothers in a demonstration of mana whenua (custodianship) and aroha through a demonstration of Ahai (rakau/paddle moves), wero (challenge), and haka.

For a blow-by-blow recap of today’s race, make sure to check out Ryan Heisler’s excellent piece posted earlier:

Here’s a look at the day from my perspective behind the camera:

Triathlon fans who were near transition early got another glimpse of how the day was going to go based on defending champ Taylor Knibb’s mood. Pre-race nerves? Not here.

Knibb might have been laughing early, but once the horn went off, she was all business.

She was a bit behind heading into the water …

… But powered out to the lead over the first few hundred meters. “Good luck with your goggle choice,” she warned the men after the race, referring to her difficulties navigating the first turn buoy.

Lotte Wilms would lead the women out of the water …

… While Hannah Berry led the chase pack that included Kat Matthews. The Kiwi was 47 seconds behind Wilms coming out of Lake Taupo. After the race Matthews said that a good swim was critical for her success on the day.

Once out on the bike, there was simply no touching Knibb, who has dominated the bike at every long-distance race she’s entered this year. During the post-race press conference, Knibb said that she would have liked to have been able to get some splits so she would know “where I am” during the bike.

“Off the front,” Ashleigh Gentle said, generating a laugh from the crowd.

… And Imogen Simmonds were able to create their own tiny chase group, but still ended up almost five minutes behind Knibb into T2.

“I am going to make the bike work for me,” Simmonds said after the race. “90 km through the countryside was beautiful. I hope they got some good shots out on the course.”

(I’ll leave it to her to decide if I did.)

This shot of Nikki Bartlett would hopefully satisfy Simmonds.

The second chase group, that included speedy runners Ashleigh Gentle and Julie Derron (and is being led here by Paula Findlay) ended up over eight minutes behind starting the run.

Derron would charge out onto the run course.

“On the run I went for the podium, but the wheels came off,” she said after the race. (Keep going for proof of how much the “wheels came off.”)

After feeling that she’d been “snubbed” by Hayden Wilde at Thursday’s press conference when he predicted that either Julie Derron or Ashleigh Gentle would post the day’s fastest run split, it was Matthews who would move into second and put together the 2nd fastest run of the day. Her 1:15:34 split was almost a minute faster than Gentle, and …

… 38-seconds faster than Tamara Jewett, who had the second-fastest run of the day, which was enough to move her to ninth.

Hannah Berry and Laura Madsen run together early on in the run.

“There wasn’t a quiet moment on the run course,” Imogen Simmonds said after the race. “And, although advertised as flat, I think there was only 1 km of flat on the course.”

In the end, there was no touching Knibb, who even managed a stop at a port-o-potty on her way to a 75-second win.

When asked what it means to have won three 70.3 world titles on three different continents on three different courses, Knibb was her usual analytic self:

“I’m not sure how different they were,” she said at the press conference. “They were all wetsuit swims, with challenging bikes and not-flat runs. Thank you, IRONMAN, for giving us tough courses.”

Second at this championship last year, second at the IRONMAN World Championship in St. George in 2022, second at this year’s IRONMAN World Championship in Nice … but first in the IRONMAN Pro Series for Kat Matthews.

And, as usual, Matthews was all class as she celebrated the day of racing with Knibb at the finish line.

In a bit of a reversal from the T100 final in Dubai, it was Gentle who paced things perfectly to move her way to the podium, running her way from sixth in T2 to third.

“I did the first transition like it was an Olympic distance and paid for it,” Gentle said after the race. “I tried to pace (the run) a bit better, and felt a lot of support from the sidelines. This event has encapsulated the spirit of triathlon.”

Even though she moved down a spot from last year, Simmonds was thrilled with fourth.

“Beating the bib number (3) was always going to be tough,” she said after the race. “I am well chuffed (with fourth).”

Derron gave it all to get to the line in fifth.

Now the only question is: Can the men top this day of racing? It won’t be easy, but we look forward to seeing them try.

Stay tuned for more fun from Taupo tomorrow.

The post Ladies Day in Taupo: Recapping the Pro Women’s Race in Words and Pictures first appeared on Slowtwitch News.