IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship 2024: Watch again as Geens nails faltering Wilde

This was our preview of the 2024 IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship – you can click here for a full report on how Jelle Geens ran down Hayden Wilde for a famous victory in New Zealand on Sunday.

Surely no one predicted the all-German men’s podium of Rico Bogen, Frederic Funk and Jan Stratmann in this race last year but it underlines that anything can happen, especially this season when the 70.3 Worlds comes right at the very end of a packed schedule.

Taupo in New Zealand finally gets to host the IRONMAN 70.3 World Championships early on Sunday (December 15, but later today in the UK/US/Europe), four years after it was originally planned – which ended up being right in the middle of the global COVID pandemic.

The middle and long-distance triathlon landscape has changed much since then, especially this season when the T100 and the IRONMAN Pro Series – of which this is the deciding race – have taken centre stage.

Throw in the Olympics and no wonder there are a fair few big names – such as Norwegian duo Kristian Blummenfelt and Gustav Iden, who have won three of the last four runnings – who have swerved this week’s race. Click here for a more detailed look at who’s missing.

But there’s added intrigue in the shape of home favourite Hayden Wilde after a season which saw him win an Olympic silver medal after that epic battle with Alex Yee in Paris.

Read on to find out more…

How to watch, start times and live tracking

The men’s race takes place on Sunday December 15, starting at 07:00 local time. That corresponds to 18:00 in the UK, 13:00 Eastern Time and 10:00 on the West Coast of the US – all of those are today (Saturday December 14).

The livestream for the race is embedded below so you don’t have to leave this page.

And coverage will be also broadcast for free across multiple platforms for global viewers including proseries.ironman.com, DAZN, YouTube, Sky Sport Now in New Zealand, Outside TV exclusively for the U.S. and Canada, L’Équipe Live in France, iQIYI in China and beIN Sports for the Middle East, North Africa and Asia-Pacific regions.

The ever reliable IRONMAN Tracker is the perfect data addition to the live coverage too, whether for the pro races or following friends or family in the age-group events.

Pro Men

We’ve seen short course stars step up in style to middle distance recently and there’s every chance that’s going to be underlined in Taupo.

For despite being number #527 in the PTO rankings and with just one (individual) middle-distance race to his name in the last four years – a win at 70.3 Melbourne in 2023 which qualified him for this – Hayden Wilde is arguably the man to beat.

He’s warmed up in good style with victories close to home and this has long been a big target.

Hayden Wilde celebration ironman 703 melbourne 2023 photo credit IRONMAN — Hayden Wilde celebrates an emphatic victory in Melbourne [Photo credit: IRONMAN]

Home fans have plenty of other athletes to cheer too – notably overall T100 runner-up Kyle Smith. He’s had a terrific season, where he hasn’t been out of the top five, and is a two-time IRONMAN 70.3 Taupo winner.

Braden Currie has had a shocking run of bad luck this year but he’s a multiple winner on home soil and is another who should go well.

The male short course scene in 2024 has been dominated by three men – Olympic and world champion Yee, Wilde and Léo Bergere.

And the Frenchman will be a threat to all after his first ever extended build into a 70.3 race. Even with limited preparation he has still won his last three events at this distance.

He triumphed in Lanzarote in 2022, then put the middle-distance experts in their place at Oceanside last season after a fantastic run battle with Jason West, before booking his Taupo spot with victory at 70.3 Valencia in April this year.

Jelle Geens is another fascinating contender from a similar mould. The Belgian is the only person to have beaten Marten Van Riel in a middle-distance race (at T100 Lake Las Vegas) but he had to turn down a slot in the Grand Final in Dubai as he and his family were moving to Australia.

Of course defending champion Rico Bogen merits the utmost respect and has shown in the last 12 months that his Lahti victory was anything but a fluke. And he silenced the doubters last time out with a superb second at T100 Dubai showing he can handle all conditions.

Rico Bogen wins the IRONMAN 70.3 World Championships — Rico Bogen wins in Finland in 2023 [Photo Credit – Nigel Roddis Getty Images for IRONMAN]

If there’s to be a longshot winner again, how about Bogen’s fellow German Justus Nieschlag who has had a stop-start season but on his day is a force to be reckoned with at this distance.

Click here for the full start list – and check out John Levison’s podium predictions here.

And there’s a fascinating sub plot in terms of the battle for the $200,000 first prize in the IRONMAN Pro Series.

Italy’s Gregory Barnaby is now in pole position after his win at IRONMAN 70.3 Western Australia a couple of weeks ago but US star Matthew Marquardt could overhaul him with a strong display – and Denmark’s Kristian Høgenhaug is in the reckoning too. Click here for an explainer of the various scenarios.

The course

Poor water quality has been an unwanted theme for the sport in 2024, thankfully not here.

For the 1.9-kilometre swim takes place in the pristine waters of Lake Taupo. The point-to-point course sees athletes diving into the water by the Taupo Yacht Club, heading straight for 300m before turning left and swimming parallel to the shoreline for 1200m. One more left turn brings athletes out on the shore opposite Kaimanawa Reserve, the location of T1. To get there, first athletes must run over a footbridge to reach their bike.

Athletes will then embark on a 90-kilometre, single loop bike course with plenty of rolling hills and punchy climbs, as well as New Zealand’s infamous chip-seal road surface. Along State Highway 5 athletes will cross the Waikato River for a second time before as they begin their journey back into town and into T2.

The 21.1-kilometre run course features two laps along the Taupo lakefront.

IRONMAN 70.3 Worlds prize money

The prize purse for the IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship in 2024 stands at a total of $500,000 with the winners taking home $75,000 each for their efforts.

The prize breakdown is as follows:

$75,000
$45,000
$30,000
$19,000
$15,000
$12,000
$10,000
$8,000
$7,500
$7,000
$6,000
$5,000
$4,000
$3,500
$3,000

IRONMAN Pro Series: What’s on the line?

As we’ve mentioned earlier, as part of the IRONMAN Pro Series athletes will also earn points as they seek to become the IRONMAN Pro Series Champion and win a share of the $1.7 million bonus prize purse.

In Taupo, the maximum possible score will be 3,000 points for 1st place, with points for all remaining professional finishers diminishing based on the time deficit to first place, at a rate of 1 point per 1 second deficit to the winner’s finishing time.