IRONMAN Leeds course announced – but no repeat of Tour de France bike route

In 2025, IRONMAN will host a full-distance triathlon in the City of Leeds for the first time, and the route for the course has been announced.

Home of the Brownlee Training Centre, the first purpose built triathlon training facility in the UK, Leeds is a city synonymous with swim, bike, run thanks to Alistair and Jonathan Brownlee – two of Great Britain’s most well-known Olympic heroes.

Leeds, and North Yorkshire, successfully hosted a section of the world-renowned Tour De France in 2014, and there were rumours part of that course, which saw the peloton ride through the Yorkshire Dales between Leeds and Harrogate, would be used for the 140.6-mile race.

Swim, Bike, Run in Leeds

Instead, the bike course will stay relatively close to Leeds with three loops just to the north of the City.

The race will be centred around Roundhay Park, which hosted the WTCS race when it was last in Leeds, and the looped formats of the swim, bike and run will offer ample opportunities for spectators to view the action.

Lewis Peacock, Race Director for IRONMAN Leeds said: “I want to thank everyone for their patience, and for full transparency, we had a course ready to go a couple of months ago, but due to some unforeseen circumstances and some setbacks with road closure permissions, we had to take a step back and re-evaluate the courses.

“The heart of the event is in Roundhay Park, which will be the event hub. The swim course will be located in the calm waters of Waterloo Lake in the south of the park. It will be two 1.9km laps with no ‘Aussie’ exit making up a 3.8km swim total.

“After a short 300m run from swim exit to transition, you will head out onto the 180km course. The bike is made up of 6km out to Shadwell followed by three 55km loops. The course is undulating with a big chunk of the 2,500m elevation found on Black Hill Road. This section also featured on the 2018 Tour de Yorkshire.

“Once returning to Roundhay Park, the IRONMAN Leeds run course features four laps of 10km.”

Who’ll be racing?

The event, scheduled for July 27, is likely to attract some of Europe’s finest long-distance triathletes, with plenty of Great British interest expected.

In terms of the professional race it is male-only, with IRONMAN Vitoria-Gasteiz a fortnight before the women’s equivalent. Both will have three slots up for grabs for the IRONMAN World Championships in Nice (men) and Kona (women).

Jonny Brownlee admitted on a Brownlee Fitness Q&A session in January that IRONMAN Leeds would be on his radar, but possibly not in 2025: “You never know. At some point I want to do an Ironman. I’m not sure if I want to do it competitively or just do want to do it – and Leeds would be the perfect one for that. So we’ll wait and see. Although it’s probably quite a brutal one to start with!”

Joe Skipper is another star name that could be on the start line, he recently hinted in a YouTube video that the 27 July event is on his radar, and tentatively suggested it was part of his plans.