The Norwegian Federation have picked Casper Stornes over Gustav Iden for the Paris Olympics test event next month.
Reigning IRONMAN World Champion Iden has targeted the 2024 Olympics in the French capital after dropping back down to short-course racing this season, but has had much more important matters to cope with away from triathlon.
He announced the tragic news in late May that his mother had lost her long and brave battle against cancer, saying at the time: “It has been really hard to try to live a high performance life and race around the world when the hardest battles have been fought at home. For now I’ll take some time off with the family.”
He has since returned and raced recently at both WTCS Montreal – which he described as his “most emotional triathlon ever” – and WTCS Hamburg. He finished 32nd and 57th in those two events and currently stands at 72nd in the world rankings.
Norway have three places in the men’s individual race in Paris on 18 August and they have gone with current Olympic champion Kristian Blummenfelt, Vetle Thorn and Stornes, who are ranked at eight, 47 and 212 respectively.
‘Last place was a close call’
Arild Tveiten, the Norwegian Federation’s Sports Director and Head Coach, talked us through their thought process by saying: “The test event is an important race and we have selected the athletes we think it’s best based on earlier results this year and fitness as it is now.
“And the last place was a close call between Gustav Iden and Casper Stornes. And our coaches and selection committee, together with the Olympic committee, finally decided who will race the test event.”
Tveiten re-iterated that Iden’s plan and goal very much remains to qualify for France next summer.
He told TRI247: “Gustav is still working to qualify for the Olympics and will race World Triathlon races for the rest of the season to get enough points so he can qualify. On a wider note, we as a nation are behind schedule to get our third male athlete qualified and that is a big priority for us.”
After the Paris test event, the WTCS Grand Final in Pontevedra – if he gets a spot – and several World Cup races in October and November present opportunities for Iden to collect World Triathlon Ranking points.
‘Big Blu’ moving in the right direction
Like Iden, Blummenfelt has also dropped back down in distance after a remarkable 2022 which saw him win the rescheduled IRONMAN World Championship in St George as well as the 70.3 Worlds at the same venue.
He’s about to embark on an incredible schedule of racing, mixing in WTCS with middle-distance.
Tveiten has been encouraged by his recent progress, most notably his close-up fourth place in a thrilling Super Sprint race at WTCS Hamburg.
“Kristian is doing well and he is getting better from day to day on short course,” he explained.
“I like what I saw in Hamburg where he shows he has the speed to be among the top guys. And we are looking forward to see him race the test event and Grand Finale.
“So overall, he is on track to fight for a medal in Paris as we see it.
“I don’t know in detail the rest of his season except his PTO races in August (US and Singapore) but it will be interesting to see how he balances travel and races at different distances within so short time.
“The only thing I know for sure is that if it’s someone who can handle it, it will be him. And that he loves to race. So it will for sure be more races than this for the rest of the season.”
Mixed relay a big Norway target
In terms of the bigger picture the progress of the likes of Thorn and Solveig Løvseth, who took the individual titles and combined with Stornes and Lotte Miller to land Mixed Relay gold in a Norwegian clean sweep at the European Games recently in Poland, has illustrated the increasing strength in depth.
Tveiten added: “Yes, the European Games showed us that we have more athletes coming up and the wins there was great for us as a team. But we are still not many athletes, [so] we work hard with the few athletes we have to develop them.
“But we are very happy, especially that the women are stepping up and we now are in a position to qualify a Mixed Relay team for the Olympics. That has been a really big goal for us since Tokyo. But we are still some races to go and this weekend in Sunderland and for sure the test event will show us where we are on this.”
