Gustav Iden, healthy again after St George, ready to return in Samorin

Gustav Iden is healthy again and will return to race action at The Championship in Samorin this weekend.

The two-time IRONMAN 70.3 World Champion was all set to go into the recent IRONMAN World Championship as favourite in St George. But he was laid low by a respiratory infection, which forced him to withdraw on the eve of the race.

Iden St George KO

The 26-year-old Norwegian was then forced to watch from the sidelines as fellow Bergen boy Kristian Blummenfelt became the new king of long-distance triathlon.

No official news as yet on whether Gustav will now target a showdown with Kristian et al in Kona later this year, but he has announced a swift return to race action after recovering from what afflicted him in Utah.

Writing in an Instagram post, he said: “Race week! I decided the day after IM WC St George that I wanted something in the near future to focus on to get my head back in a better place.

Gustav healthy again

“Traveled home straight away and I’ve done my absolute best to get healthy and back into some training. Had a medical check on Friday, and everything looks normal.

“So I’m super excited to say I’m doing the @challengefamily Championship this weekend!”

Happy hunting ground

Iden of course will have happy memories of Samorin in the recent past, after his exploits during the inaugural Collins Cup last August.

Gustav set the second fastest time of the entire day in overcoming Collin Chartier and Kyle Smith to help Europe lift the trophy. Only modern-day GOAT Jan Frodeno went faster.

Gustav Iden / Collins Cup 2021 — Gustav Iden winning his race at the 2021 Collins Cup.

In terms of major targets for the season, Iden has not closed the door on rocking up in Hawaii in October – he said that is still a possibility in a recent interview with Mark Allen on the ‘Road To St George’.

The Norwegian though has stated that his number one aim is defending the 70.3 World title in St George in late October. Any Kona bid would require him to be confident he could recover in time for Utah some three weeks later.

We’ll have a full preview of this weekend’s The Championship from John Levison, landing around lunchtime tomorrow (Tuesday).