Last chance saloon as final Kona and Nice spots up for grabs

The qualifying windows for the respective men’s and women’s professional races in Nice and Kona at the IRONMAN World Championship slam shut at the end of this week.

And the focus is on two IRONMAN events in the Nordics – Kalmar for the women and Copenhagen for the men, with just the one World Championship spot up for grabs in each.

IRONMAN Kalmar takes place on Saturday (16 August), with the female professional field including reigning champion Marlene de Boer (NLD) and 2022 IRONMAN World Champion, Chelsea Sodaro (USA) – the latter looking to validate a return to Kona in October by finishing and ‘racing competitively’.

And IRONMAN Copenhagen will be centre stage 24 hours later, with a strong male professional field featuring Mathias Lyngsø Petersen (DNK), Finn Große-Freese (DEU) and Joe Skipper (GBR) – though all three of them have already qualified for Nice.

IRONMAN Kalmar – who’s racing?

As the reigning champion from last year’s race, De Boer will be wearing bib number one.

De Boer set the female course record last year in a time of 08:39:31, with Katrine Græsbøll Christensen (DEN), who is also due to toe the line this year, just two minutes behind.

De Boer comes off a strong season so far at middle-distance, including a home win at IRONMAN 70.3 Westfriesland, but hasn’t raced an IRONMAN this year and is seeking Kona qualification.

Græsbøll Christensen however has already booked her ticket to Kona following an impressive third place finish early in the season at ISUZU IRONMAN South Africa African Championship triathlon. And she heads into this in form after a win at the start of August at IRONMAN 70.3 Krakow.

Sodaro, the 2022 IRONMAN World Champion has had a couple of false starts at full-distance this season but has still two second place finishes under her belt from IRONMAN 70.3 Happy Valley and IRONMAN 70.3 Eagleman triathlons.

Other contenders for the podium include Sara Svensk (SWE) who will be hoping for a good result on home soil, Nikki Bartlett (GBR), and Katharina Wolff (DEU) amongst others.

IRONMAN Copenhagen – who’s racing

The following day, over 50 professional male athletes will head to the capital city of Denmark to battle it out for the final slot to the 2025 IRONMAN World Championship in Nice in September.

Local Lyngsø Petersen will be wearing bib number one. He has already secured his ticket to Nice following a third-place finish at IRONMAN Lanzarote, but upon finding out Qatar Airways IRONMAN Copenhagen would be a professional male race he took to Instagram to say: ‘I knew I had to support it by being there’. And he comes here off his first ever IRONMAN 70.3 triathlon win in Westfriesland a few weeks ago.

Große-Freese (DEU), who is in his third year as a professional athlete will provide stiff competition. The young German had a career defining performance earlier this year when he took the win at IRONMAN Kaernten-Klagenfurt.

Skipper (GBR) is also back to IRONMAN racing after a successful early season race at IRONMAN New Zealand.

But as we said at the start that trio are all qualified but Rasmus Svenningson (SWE) isn’t so has added incentive as do Thor Bendix Madsen (DNK) and Cody Beals (CAN) amongst others.