Sam Long’s last-ditch attempt to grab a coveted spot at the IRONMAN World Championship in Kona didn’t pay off as he could only finish 22nd at IRONMAN Frankfurt on Sunday.
The American star only got a rolled down place on the start line on Tuesday but, based in Trieste in Italy for a training block, he decided to give it a go on an unconventional prep to see if he could snag one of the six places on offer.
“I want to get to Kona – ‘literally anything is possible’ is the mindset this week,” he had said on his Instagram page.
How did Sam Long’s race play out?
Unfortunately things didn’t pan out as planned – he was over seven minutes back after the swim and that had ballooned to more than 17 minutes on the bike.
To his credit he made up some ground on the run with a 2:44 marathon, but it was too little too late and he would finish in 22nd place, 24 minutes adrift of brilliant winner Kristian Blummenfelt.
Former IRONMAN World Champ Blummenfelt himself had hardly had a routine run into the race either, having raced in the Olympics at Paris 2024 less than two weeks before.
Who did get those six Kona spots?
And as it happened Long was way off one of those six spots, with only ‘Big Blu’ (so long as he validated by finishing), Kacper Stepniak and Patrick Lange of the top nine having already booked their places despite 18 of the 80-strong field being Kona-bound.
That means – providing they accept them – Kieran Lindars, Gregory Barnaby, Kristian Hogenhaug, Menno Koolhaas, Jonas Hoffmann and Finn Große-Freese grabbed the coveted berths in what was the final qualifying race of 2024 for the men.
Long still has plenty to look forward to this season though, with the world number three nicely placed in the T100 standings.
