More Norwegian domination in store as 70.3 Worlds rounds off IRONMAN Pro Series?

An incredible men’s field is set to line up for the IRONMAN 70.3 World Championships in Marbella on Sunday 9th November.

The Norwegian trio who swept the board at the IRONMAN World Championship in Nice all head to Spain as do the last two winners of the race, Jelle Geens (BEL) and Rico Bogen (DEU).

RELATED CONTENT: Click here for full women’s start list

But one big name missing is last year’s runner-up and runaway T100 leader Hayden Wilde. There had been speculation he might be granted a wildcard as he wasn’t able to take in his intended qualifying race given he was recovering from serious injuries after being hit by a truck in Japan when on a training ride – but that doesn’t appear to have materialised.

More success for Norway?

Casper Stornes led home that famous one-two-three at the IMWC in Nice recently and makes his 70.3 Worlds debut but his compatriots on the podium, Kristian Blummenfelt and Gustav Iden, are both former 70.3 Worlds winners.

That trio currently occupy the top three positions in the IRONMAN Pro Series for which this is the concluding race. Blummenfelt sits top of the standings, with Stornes a distant second and a similar gap back to Iden in third so another lucrative day for Norway is on the cards.

Also hoping to score valuable Pro Series points and improve on their position in the year-end standings are Kristian Høgenhaug (DNK), Nick Thompson (AUS), and Rudy Von Berg (USA) – sitting, sixth, eighth, and 10th respectively.

With the two athletes above him in the standings not racing in Marbella, Høgenhaug has a very real chance to leapfrog into fourth – needing just 209 points to do so – and possibly as high as second if he scores 2,723 or more and Iden and Stornes, who both already have the full quota of races, don’t improve their scores.

Several athletes on the Marbella start list are no strangers to the podium at the IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship triathlon. Sam Long (USA) in 2021 and Ben Kanute (USA) in 2022 and 2017 have both finished runner-up, while Von Berg in 2019, Magnus Ditlev (DNK) in 2022, and Daniel Bækkegård (DNK) in 2021 have finished third.

A notable absentee is Canada’s Lionel Sanders, who had hoped to be back in time after an injury lay-off.

Meanwhile, a cohort of short-course athletes will be hoping to make their mark on the middle distance at their debut 70.3 World Championship, including Panagiotis Bitados (GRC), Vincent Luis (FRA) and 2024 Olympians Jonas Schomburg (DEU), Jamie Riddle (ZAF), Sam Dickinson (GBR), Jake Birtwhistle (AUS), Seth Rider (USA), Alessio Crociani (ITA), and Miguel Hidalgo (BRA), among others.

Men’s provisional start list – Sun 9th Nov