The IRONMAN Pro Series heads back to Europe this weekend as 70.3 Elsinore in Denmark, staged in the shadow of 15th century Kronborg Castle, home to Shakespeare’s Hamlet, takes centre stage.
It’s the eighth stop in the series and features something of an unplanned appearance from the women’s Pro Series winner in each of the last two years, Kat Matthews.
The Brit is hoping to use the race to get back into podium contention after being forced out of IRONMAN Texas by a serious puncture.
Here’s all you need to know ahead of 70.3 Elsinore, which is the last chance for the men and the penultimate one for the women to qualify for the 2026 IRONMAN 70.3 World Championships in Nice, with three spots per gender up for grabs.
Start time and how to watch live
The pro races start at 07:30 CEST on Sunday 21 June which is 6:30 BST, 01:30 Eastern and 22:30 on Saturday on the West Coast of the US.
The broadcast begins 30 minutes beforehand and the pro men start first, with the women beginning five minutes later.
The race will be broadcast live and for free across multiple platforms for viewers around the world including proseries.ironman.com, DAZN, iQIYI, L’Equipe Live, and YouTube among others.
And the YouTube coverage is embedded below so you don’t have to leave this page.
Remember too that the IRONMAN Tracker app is an invaluable ‘second screen’ addition to the coverage.
Women’s pro race
When the initial start list was announced it was something of a surprise to see Kat Matthews‘ name at the top of the women’s entries but she has added this in as a creative way to try and give herself a shot at the IRONMAN Pro Series podium.
Three IRONMAN races and two 70.3s is the most advantageous way to rack up the points but given that Texas DNF and a focus on Challenge Roth it would be hugely tricky for her to add a full-distance replacement in without impacting her build to Kona.
So she is going down the three 70.3s route and she’s the clear favourite for the 2,500 points here as she looks to add another victory to her triumphs at IRONMAN New Zealand and 70.3 Geelong.
Two women who raced IRONMAN Hamburg recently, third-placed Katrine Græsbøll Christensen (DEN) and sixth-placed Lotte Wilms (NED) will line up against Matthews.
Christensen will lead the home hopes while Wilms has already raced four times this season and made the podium alongside Matthews at IRONMAN New Zealand.
Marta Sanchez (ESP) will also be confident of securing a good result in Elsinore, refreshed after a mid-season break following earlier sixth and third place results at 70.3 Oceanside and IRONMAN Texas.
Another athlete in contention for a podium finish will be Lena Meißner (DEU), with the German having already secured two third place finishes at European IRONMAN 70.3 triathlons this year (Valencia and Kraichgau) as well as a runner-up spot at Challenge Family’s ‘The Championship’.
Others to look out for are Audrey Merle (FRA), third at Oceanside, and Natalie Van Coevorden (AUS), winner of 70.3 Western Sydney in May and two Brits on the comeback trail in Fenella Langridge and Steph Clutterbuck.
Men’s pro race
As we said at the start this is the last chance for the men in terms of qualifying for the IRONMAN 70.3 Worlds and one big name not already on the list is Belgium’s Marten Van Riel.
He has never been beaten in an IRONMAN 70.3 triathlon, with five wins in total, while his only race to date in 2026 was a superb second behind Kristian Blummenfelt at IRONMAN Texas.
Jamie Riddle (ZAF) and Kyle Smith (NZL) will be hoping to bank a positive result after challenging starts to their seasons. Riddle finished seventh at last year’s 70.3 World Championship and Smith fourth at the event in 2024.
Denmark’s Kristian Høgenhaug will hope the roar of a home crowd can kickstart his 2026 campaign, which hasn’t started as strongly as the previous two in which the Dane performed consistently well, earning him two third place finishes in the overall IRONMAN Pro Series standings.
And Jeremy Maclean (USA) catches the eye as he looks to back up his shock recent victory at 70.3 Chattanooga.
Elsinore course
The race start marked by an old cannon being fired and the one-lap 1.9km swim winds its way around Elsinore Harbour in front of the historic Kronborg Castle, with a double-figure number of turns.
The 90km bike course heads out north along the stunning coastline of Northern Sealand. Just before Hornbæk city the athletes turn left towards the countryside and then have two anti-clockwise laps. After finishing the second of those they return towards the city. It is described as “rolling” but is relatively quick, with 333 metres of climbing.
Onto the run and a twisty circuit through the local streets sees three full laps and then a half lap to finish. It is essentially pan flat, with just 24 metres of elevation over the whole half marathon.
The forecast looks pretty favourable as Denmark has avoided the hot temperatures currently over much of Europe, with a predicted max of 21 degrees Celsius on race day and just a gentle breeze.
IRONMAN Pro Series 2026
This is the eighth stop in the IRONMAN Pro Series which sees athletes competing for a piece of the $1.7 million USD season-ending bonus prize pool.
Professionals racing at 70.3 Elsinore will also race for a share of a $50,000 USD event prize purse.
The Pro Series is 16 events in total – six IRONMANs and eight IRONMAN 70.3 triathlons around the world in addition to the IRONMAN World Championship and the IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship.
The best five scores (up to three IRONMANs) count and the winners of full-distance events will be allocated a maximum of 5000 points for winning, with 2,500 awarded in 70.3 races. Those totals go up to 6,000 and 3,000 respectively for the World Championships.
Points for all remaining professional finishers will diminish based on the time deficit to first place at a rate of 1 point per 1 second to the first place finish time. There is no points minimum, or “floor”. Points will accumulate throughout the season.
A cool $200,000 is on offer for the series winner on both the men’s and women’s side, with second earning €130,000 and third receiving $85,000.
