Challenge Roth 2025 men's results: INCREDIBLE comeback win for Sam Laidlow

France’s Sam Laidlow, the IRONMAN World Champion in 2023, made a quite astonishing comeback with a brilliant victory at Challenge Roth.

Just making the start line was a huge step forward after an incredibly frustrating time since his spectacular blow up at the IRONMAN World Championship in Kona last October.

Injuries and illness had limited training time and meant this was his first race since then – and that no doubt contributed to a gameplan which was very different to his previous big wins where he would blitz the bike leg.

Here he was in a big front group in the swim but then bided his time on the bike before closing to within just under a minute of trailblazing Jonas Schomburg (GER) by T2.

Even then Laidlow remained patient on the run and it wasn’t until just before the 30km point that he moved past Schomburg and into the lead – and never looked back.

He kept on strongly to claim an understandably emotional victory in 7:29:35, with Schomburg staying on well for second.

Jan Stratmann (GER), narrowly denied third place here 12 months ago, rounded out the podium this time after just getting the better of a battle with short-course legend Vincent Luis (FRA) on what was the latter’s full-distance debut.

Swim – Schoeman shows the way

History was made at Roth before the race even started as this was the first time in the 41 years of the event that the swim was non-wetsuit for both pros and age groupers.

Thankfully though the baking hot weather this week had been turned down a notch, with cloud cover at the start and very still conditions for the 3.8km swim in the Danube Canal.

Rarely have we had such swim strength in a race, massively boosted by a number of Olympians making their full-distance debuts.

And it was full gas from the outset, so much so that despite being non-wetsuit the leading times were virtually identical to last year.

First out of the water was Henri Schoeman in 46:17, just fractions ahead of Schomburg, Lukasz Wojt (GER), and Luis.

There were 10 men in total within 30 seconds of Schoeman but three big names to miss out were last year’s runner-up Thomas Bishop (GBR) at +2:25, Frederic Funk (GER) at +3:04 in what was his first full-distance race and Matt Hanson (USA) at +6:10.

Bike – Schomburg bosses the bike

Schomburg had been bullish in the pre-race press conference and just as he did at IRONMAN Frankfurt seven days earlier, he rode away from the field out of T1.

Last week his aero bars literally fell off to scupper his chances but thankfully there was no repeat here.

He was 33 seconds clear after 5km, 1:19 to the good after 16km and he took the gap over the two minutes mark before we’d even covered 30 of the 180km.

And it was none other than Laidlow who had now emerged as his closest challenger, though at that point only 30 seconds covered second to 11th.

That chase group gradually started to get whittled down and by the time the leaders reached the packed crowds on the iconic Solarer Hill at 71km, Schomburg had a 2:31 lead over Laidlow.

There was then a long line behind the front two – Aaron Royle (AUS) +4:19, Jannik Stoll (GER) +4:19, Stratmann +4:19, Daniel Baekkegard (DEN) +4:20, Florian Angert (GER) +4:23, Luis + 4:24, Jesper Svennson (SWE) +4:27, Willy Hirsch (GER) +4:28, Schoeman +4:29, Finn Große-Freese (GER) +4:31 and Arne Leiss (GER) +4:34.

Things then stayed relatively static – at least in terms of Schomburg and Laidlow, with 2:27 between them at 137km.

By now the gap to the chase group, which was headed by Stratmann until he dropped his chain when going up Solarer Hill for the second time, was around six minutes.

But heading towards T2 and things began to change as Laidlow closed on Schomburg and Luis moved up into third.

Schomburg, who had ridden the entire bike leg aggressively from the front just as he’d promised, deservedly reached T2 in front.

However Laidlow was now only 50 seconds behind, with Luis next at 4:06 – though he lost a few seconds when a brilliant short-course dismount was followed by him momentarily struggling to find his kit bag.

Funk meanwhile had paced his bike leg nicely and he was fourth into T2 and part of a strong German challenge.

Run – Laidlow times it to perfection

The run was fascinating because it was Schomburg rather than Laidlow who set off quickest – though it would later emerge that Laidlow thought he was in front at that point.

What had been 50 seconds at T2 soon went out to over three minutes not long after the 10km mark.

But Laidlow was playing a patient game – and one which would pay dividends.

By the halfway point he had brought the gap down to under two minutes and the momentum had clearly shifted.

The catch came just before the 30km mark as Laidlow cruised past Schomburg and never looked like relinquishing his hard-gained lead.

He quickly put a minute between them but the drama was coming in behind as Stratmann and Luis were involved in an absorbing battle for third while Hanson was cutting through the field having clocked an incredible 1:12 half marathon.

Remember that until this year and Manoel Messias’ 2:26:50 at IRONMAN Brazil, no man had ever gone under 2:30 for the marathon at the end of a full-distance race – and Roth is the race where the latest carbon prototype shoes are allowed.

At the front of the race Laidlow had 1:49 to spare over Schomburg when the line came, with Stratmann overhauling Luis late on for third place.