It’s all change for America’s Ben Kanute ahead of the 2025 triathlon season.
The 32-year-old was runner-up when he pushed Kristian Blummenfelt all the way at the IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship in 2022, but hasn’t quite hit the same heights since then.
He was third – in 7:37, which was then a best full-distance time by a US male – at Challenge Roth in 2023 and then 2024 saw two runner-up spots, at 70.3 Mont-Tremblant and 70.3 Michigan, But Ben has not claimed a victory since 2021.
‘Triple Crown’ goal for Ben Kanute
He had already announced that he’d parted company – on good terms – from his long-time coach Jim Vance and his latest YouTube video reveals who will be taking over and plenty of other developments.
We’ve embedded the video below but the headline aspects are that he’s going to focus on the IRONMAN Pro Series rather than the T100 in 2025, he’s moved to Colorado and Neal Henderson is his new coach.
Starting with his race schedule, he says: “This year my main focus is the IRONMAN Pro Series – it just hits a lot of nails on the head for me.
“One, I want to win the IRONMAN World Champs. Two, I want to win 70.3 Worlds and I want to win the Pro Series. It’s the Triple Crown. It’s a huge goal. It’s pretty lofty, but it’s something that’s motivating to me. And that’s not to say I won’t race T100 if I get a wild card slot or something.
“So my schedule right now is looking like this – Oceanside 70.3, IRONMAN Texas, then either Boulder or Eagleman 70.3. And then I have IRONMAN Frankfurt, then the IRONMAN World Champs in Nice, which I do still have to qualify for.
“And then Marbella, Spain, which I am qualified for, for the half IRONMAN World Champs.”
Location, location, location
Second is the change in location – from Phoenix, Arizona to close to Boulder, Colorado.
He adds: Frankly, 2025 is the year of change. As you can tell from the title, change is inevitable and comfort is for the weak.
“There are a lot of reasons. One of the main ones is uprooting the family every summer to go and find someplace cooler to train. It’s getting harder as the kids get older and that’s a big motivator for us.
“We spent a couple years trying to figure out where exactly that would be and after Christmas we found what we’ve been calling our dream home and it’s in northern Colorado.
“I just think it’s going to be absolutely perfect for our family. And there’s a lot of things that do go into a decision like this. So while it seems like it’s pretty fast and erratic, we’ve been thinking about it for a while.
“And it’s just already an established high-performance training place with Boulder being so close by, so really excited for that.”
Meet Ben’s new coach
And that brings us to big change number three, his new coach Henderson who is also based around Boulder.
Henderson was USA Triathlon’s National Coach of the Year in 2017 having guided Taylor Knibb to ITU Junior and U23 World Championship victories as well as Bermuda’s Flora Duffy to the 2016 and 2017 ITU Elite World Championship titles.
He coached Duffy for nine years and he has also excelled in cycling, helping Rohan Dennis to the UCI Hour Record and Evelyn Stevens to the women’s equivalent.
Kanute says of Henderson: “I interviewed quite a few coaches, and I think everybody could pretty much get me fit. A lot of smart people out there, and, you know, Jim is one of them, and he got me super fit, too. And my power was some of the best it’s ever been, but it wasn’t translating to races. And the efficiency and just being rested are what we’re changing for this year.
“I haven’t been training with Neal long enough to give you a full rundown on his whole philosophy but basically, I feel like we’re going back to the basics. High and low cadence drills, kick and drills in the pool, and then just making sure that we’re not building up too fast after coming off a year where I did the most training I’ve ever done.
“The thing that really stood out with me to Neal is his background in cycling and time trialling and just knowing that there’s a disconnect between what we’ve been seeing in the wind tunnel and my bike fit and what’s been shown on the race course.”
As to why this flurry of switches has come about, Kanute admitted: “I think that I probably just got a bit too comfortable in everything we were doing. And we got caught up in trying to do more, do more intensity, do more volume, and got comfort in what we were doing.
“And sometimes it takes a heck of a lot of changes to reset yourself, get back to focusing on the fundamentals and come back stronger. So 2025 is going to be massive.”
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