With a sense of almost palpable inevitability, the winner of this year’s final major series was crowned in Qatar earlier this month, with Kiwi machine Hayden Wilde adding his name to the illustrious roster of 2025 champions.
Powering over the line for his sixth win of the T100 season, he brought the curtain down on this triathlon season in the dominant style we have come to expect from an athlete who will surely go on to be one of the sport’s greats.
But if his win was somewhat predictable, the same could not be said for many of those whom he now joins on the honours board at the end of a year which has once again delighted, enthralled and royally entertained all swim, bike, run fans.
The beauty of triathlon is that there truly is something for everyone throughout the season. With short, mid and long-course athletes well catered for as rival series and organisers look to deliver the very best experiences for fans and competitors alike.
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Here, we take a look at some of the highlights of a men’s pro triathlon season, sweeping through the many formats and organisations which have served up some of the most thrilling and awe-inspiring action for the last ten months.
World Triathlon Championship Series (WTCS): Matt Hauser (AUS)
Starting with the short-course champion, Matt Hauser of Australia, who was in a class of his own for pretty much the entire campaign, putting together the first perfect WTCS season.
His stunning win at Wollongong in October’s WTCS Finals confirmed his title victory in real style, while elsewhere he anchored the Australian team which won the World Triathlon Mixed Relay Championships in Hamburg.
Next year could be even more interesting should the Aussie accept the challenge of Hayden Wilde to join him on the T100 World Triathlon Tour next season!
What he said: “I’m just overwhelmed with gratitude – gratitude for my family, my friends, for my girlfriend, for all coming out to support. To the Australian public and the Wollongong public – this all means so much to me.”
T100 World Triathlon Tour: Hayden Wilde (NZL)
If someone were to tell you last May that Hayden Wilde would go on to win the T100 Tour with six wins out of seven races and secure the championship with a maximum 195, you could be forgiven for shooting them a puzzled, doubting glance.
Having opened the season with a T100 win in Singapore, the New Zealander then hit a truck while out cycling in Japan and was rushed to hospital with six broken ribs, a punctured lung and a smashed-up scapula, which required specialist surgery and left a scar that Wilde likened to having been bitten by a shark.
Months of brutal rehabilitation – check out his YouTube channel for evidence of his no-nonsense recovery programme – saw him eventually return, somewhat surprisingly, for the London T100 in early August; he had missed just two races of the Tour season and was clearly keen to make up for lost time.
Victory in London was followed by wins on the French Riviera, in Spain, in Wollongong, and, of course, in the final in Qatar. It could even be said that he missed out on the perfect seven from seven due to the Dubai laps fiasco… but there is no need to go into that here.
What he said: “It’s pretty special, from starting in Singapore and then being in the hospital a bit. I’m just so happy with how everything has turned out. I love the pressure, and I love being hunted, but I came here with a smile on my face, and it’s a nice place to be.”
IRONMAN World Championship: Casper Stornes (NOR)
While Hauser and Wilde would have offered you short odds on winning their respective events, having a punt on Casper Stornes in the IRONMAN World Championship would certainly have given you better value for your money, as the debutant surprised everyone by leading the Norwegian 1-2-3 in Nice.
The surprise wasn’t that he was up there competing; it was more that he managed to outrun his international colleagues, training partners and former champions, Gustav Iden and Kristian Blummenfelt, with a performance that truly announced him to the world stage.
A Norse podium takeover was always going to be a possibility; indeed, some even predicted it. But what they did not foresee was an order that had Stornes in first, Iden second and Blummenfelt in third.
Stornes also secured top-three finishes at 70.3 Aix-en-Provence (2nd), IRONMAN Frankfurt (3rd), and the 70.3 World Championships (3rd) in what will surely prove to be a breakout season in the longer format for an athlete who promises much in 2026.
What he said: “I knew I had a chance to win, but I also knew I had some really hard competitors to beat. I am just over the moon. They (Iden and Blummenfelt) have pushed me to the line for so many years. They are the best mates that I can share the podium with, and I’m so happy.”
IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship: Jelle Geens (BEL)
Jelle Geens went into the final week of the season still harbouring remote hopes of catching Wilde in the T100 Tour standings but was unable to find the form which had, a month earlier, seen him defend his IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship.
The Belgian finished a disappointing seventh in Qatar, as his dreams of robbing the Kiwi of his title were pretty much dashed the moment his rival sat on his bike to go on and complete a masterclass win in the desert.
A final position of third in the T100, coupled with his win in the 70.3 World Championship, still made this an impressive year for the former Olympian, who, post-race in Qatar, insisted he was ready to come back even stronger in 2026 and challenge his rival Wilde.
He heads off for a well-deserved break, knowing that his burst of pace to sprint away from Blummenfelt in the closing stages of the 70.3 Worlds was right up there as one of the most thrilling moments of the season.
As well as his 70.3 crown, other wins this year came at 70.3 Geelong and the T100 in Vancouver, while he was second at the T100s in San Francisco, the French Riviera and Spain, and third in London.
What he said: “This was the whole goal of the season. It is incredible… Being able to do it while having a family and doing everything with the family makes it all the more deserving. My little girl was there shouting ‘daddy, daddy’ – hopefully she can look back in ten years and be proud.”
IRONMAN Pro-Series: Kristian Blummenfelt (NOR)
Big Blu may have missed out on the main goals of his season, as he finished third in the IRONMAN World Championship and second in the 70.3 World Championship, but his durability and consistency were as impressive as ever as he dominated the IRONMAN Pro-Series.
No doubt the winning cheque for $200,000 US would have helped to ease some of the frustration in missing out on those crowns to Stornes and Geens, but you can bet the Norwegian will already be planning his revenge for 2026.
Blummenfelt won IRONMAN races in Texas and Frankfurt, as well as the 70.3 in Aix-en-Provence, as he edged Stornes into second place in the Pro-Series rankings by finishing ahead of him in the 70.3 World Championships.
It is a Norse rivalry which promises to deliver so much more as we now look ahead to 2026 and a new season of triathlon thrills and spills.
What he said: “The overall season has been average, I would say. It gives me motivation at least for the next year… trying to do better in those World Championships. That’s what we race for – we want to win world titles. A podium is a podium, but I want to take that tape. Failed twice this year, but two more chances next year.”
Challenge Roth: Sam Laidlow (FRA)
Having suffered for much of the season with health and injury issues, British-born French athlete Sam Laidlow bounced back to winning ways in his very first race with this stunning display of determination in Bavaria.
His astonishing feat, achieved with little in the way of pre-race training, saw him hunt down and pass home favourite Jonas Schomburg (GER) on the run before storming through to the finish line in a time of 7:29:35.
His monumental effort was made all the more remarkable after the race when he admitted to having lost track of where he was in the race, believing that he was already well in the lead, when in actual fact he was in second place behind Schomburg.
Such was his self-supposed position of dominance that he actually slowed down during the bike section, thinking the split times he was receiving were of his position going back to second place and not from first place back to him.
The eventual victory was then followed up with a win at IRONMAN Leeds, as the 2023 IRONMAN World Champion finally seemed to be back in the podium running.
What he said: “I actually thought I was first, and [that] people were giving me splits [back] to Jonas… I was slowing down, thinking that I would work with him, and the more I slowed down, obviously, the more I wouldn’t catch him. Then… I saw him at a turnaround on the run, and I was like, did he just cut the course or something? I thought he was two minutes behind.”
Supertri Championship: Csongor Lehmann (HUN)
Hungary’s Csongor Lehmann grabbed his first overall Supertri title in the best way possible as he lifted the tape in Toulouse to complete his second series win of the season.
He went into the Grand Final knowing that Portugal’s Vasco Vilaca posed the biggest threat to him taking the championship crown, but never really looked to be in any danger as he dealt with tricky conditions well to seal a memorable victory.
Lehmann, a breakout star of the 2025 Supertri League, had won in Jersey and finished second behind Britain’s Alex Yee in Toronto before arriving in France for the series decider, knowing that a second win on the bounce would seal the deal, and he did not disappoint.
What he said: “I’m almost speechless; it was crazy from the very beginning. I was working perfectly with Seth on the swim, bike and run – it was just a dream team. And this is like a dream coming true for me.”
