The IRONMAN Pro Series heads to castle country this weekend to take in the scenic surroundings of Swansea Bay, the Mumbles and the Gower Peninsula in Wales with Kat Matthews the big-name draw after Magnus Ditlev decided against racing so soon after IRONMAN Frankfurt.
British star Matthews was the Pro Series women’s champion last year and has made a superb start to 2025, winning IRONMAN Texas and coming a close second to Laura Philipp at IRONMAN Hamburg.
Nikki Bartlett was scheduled to defend her Swansea title from last year and in the #1 bib but just seven days after a tough day out at Challenge Roth, she’s now dropped off the latest start list.
However IRONMAN Pro Series leader Anne Reischmann is also competing and so is fellow German and arguably the quickest runner at 70.3 – Daniela Kleiser.
IRONMAN 70.3 Swansea triathlon offers a maximum of 2,500 points towards IRONMAN Pro Series standings and a $50,000 event total pro prize purse.
Harry Palmer, who won here last year, will line up again on the men’s side alongside the likes of Leon Chevalier, who finished fourth overall in last year’s Series.
Start time and how to watch live
The action begins early on Sunday morning when the Pro men set off at 7am local time (8am CEST), with the women going off five minutes later.
The race will be broadcast live and for free across multiple platforms for viewers around the world including proseries.ironman.com, Outside TV for US and Canada viewers, DAZN, iQIYI, L’Equipe Live, and YouTube among others.
And we’ll embedded the YouTube livestream below nearer the time so you don’t have to leave this page.
Pro Men’s race
The race comes too soon after his IRONMAN Frankfurt workout on 29 June for Great Dane Ditlev, who is still smarting from his his frustrating ‘temporary’ disqualification in Germany.
Bib number one belongs to defending champion Palmer, whose win last year was followed by a solid eighth place finish at the 2024 IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship race in Taupō.
He has yet to get on the podium so far this year but is getting closer after following up a sixth-placed finish at Challenge “The Championship” Samorin with fourth at IRONMAN 70.3 Sweden.
The big favourite though – providing this doesn’t come too soon after his heroics at IRONMAN Frankfurt – is Denmark’s Kristian Høgenhaug.
He animated the race in Germany and made Kristian Blummenfelt pull out all the stops to take the win.
Høgenhaug should relish the lumpy bike course in Wales and there’s every chance that this time he’ll have put the race to bed by the time we start the run.
Frenchman Chevalier showed his class last season and heads to Swansea for the first time looking to improve on his current 18th place position in the standings.
Cameron Wurf of Australia is also a contender in his seventh IRONMAN Pro Series race of the season, and currently sits second in the standings.
Pro women’s race
Matthews currently is in second position in the Series and will be on the hunt for points to push past Germany’s Reischmann, who will be looking to add to her victory at the ISUZU IRONMAN South Africa African Championship.
Swansea offers an ideal first opportunity for Matthews of a maximum 70.3 points haul to further enhance her Pro Series ambitions and she will be the overwhelming favourite on what are relatively ‘home’ roads.
Kleiser, renowned for her run pace, already has the IRONMAN 70.3 Valencia Champion title under her belt, as well as fourth place finishes at Qatar Airways IRONMAN 70.3 Eagleman and IRONMAN 70.3 Venice-Jesolo, and should be a threat if she’s anywhere near after the bike.
Hanne De Vet from Belgium will race her first IRONMAN 70.3 triathlon of the season after recording three podium finishes last year as well as this year’s huge win at Challenge Family’s ‘The Championship’.
And Britain’s Lizzie Rayner will return following an impressive second place finish at IRONMAN 70.3 Aix-en-Provence in May.
Swansea course
The Swansea course combines outstanding natural beauty and a rich sense of history. The one-loop 1.2-mile (1.9km) swim begins at the Prince of Wales Dock – the forecast is for a very hot day but this part of it will almost certainly be chilly even in a wetsuit.
The one-loop 56-mile (90km) bike course may go through the picturesque Mumbles beauty spot but it’s pretty brutal for the athletes along roads that hug the Gower’s coastal clifftops. It then twists out through Rural Swansea before heading back along Swansea Bay into the city.
Lastly, athletes will take on a much more gentle 13.1-mile (21.1km) two loop run course which takes them from the city centre, out past the new eye-catching gold-coloured Swansea Arena, towards Mumbles before heading back towards the finish line at the Marina.
IRONMAN Pro Series 2025
This is the12th stop on an 18-race schedule at 17 locations which will venture to Australasia, Europe, North America and Africa. The Series has an end-of-year bonus pool totalling $1.7m, that is on top of the prize money awarded for each race.
Winners of full-distance events will be allocated a maximum of 5000 points for winning, with 2,500 awarded in 70.3 races.
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.
The male and female pro with the most points at the end of the Pro Series will be crowned IRONMAN Pro Series Champions. A competitor’s best five events will determine their points total.
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. The cumulative payout for the 2025 season is €2,450,000.
