Iron Man Hawaii: Norway’s Eden is world champion

The new Iron Man world champion comes from Norway and is called Gustav Eden. The Hawaiian race athlete won a new course record. Veteran Sebastian Kenley finished sixth in the farewell performance.

Gustav Iden became the Ironman World Champion with a great race. After swimming 3.8 km, cycling 180 km and marathon, the Norwegian took a surprising runner-up to Sam Laidlaw of France and won a new course record of 7:40:24 hours. In doing so, he left the frontrunner to his compatriot Christian Blumenfelt, who finished third.

“It was really hard,” said winner Eden. “The last few kilometers the island really tried to slip me.” “It was really epic.”

The best German was Sebastian Kenley in sixth, who put an exclamation point again with his last race in Hawaii. Former world champion Patrick Lange, like Florian Angert, received a time penalty while cycling, and thus could no longer fight for the top spots.

Penalties for Lang and Angert

When swimming at the start of the most important triathlon of the year, no initial decision was made. 19 athletes got out of the water together in a large group led by Angert and Laidlaw. Lange, who was not in the group, also had a good starting position with a deficit of under 1:30 minutes.

But on the bike path, German hopes came to a sudden halt. Both Lange and Angert, who were well ahead, violated the offside rules and had to enter the penalty area for five minutes. So both of them were very late, had to move in weaker groups and lost a lot of time. Things went better for Kenley, who kept catching up and started the marathon in eighth.

Laidlow keeps it exciting even before the end

However, the second discipline was dominated by another person, the Frenchman Laidlaw. The 23-year-old broke the cycling record in Hawaii by more than four minutes and started the final marathon with a clear lead over Norwegian candidates Eden and Blomenfelt.

And if you think that Laidlaw has exhausted all his energy on this record, you are wrong. The young man withstood the attacks of the Norwegians up to 35 km before Eden finally caught him. The favorite Blumenfelt, who had already won the rescheduled World Cup from 2021 in Utah in May, is no longer able to follow the pace of the eventual world champion. No wonder: In addition to the course record, Iden also improved the marathon record in Kona with 2:36:15 hours.

Long in the top ten

Behind him, Kienle also showed a great performance on the running track and finished sixth behind Iden, Laidlow, Blummenfelt and surprisingly strong Australian Max Neumann and Joe Skipper of Great Britain. Patrick Lange’s performance was also noteworthy: the 2017 and 2018 world champion ran a major marathon and thus climbed to 10th place.

Source: sportschau.de