IRONMAN South Africa 2025 men's results: Ditlev dominant and Van Riel books IMWC spot

Magnus Ditlev started his 2025 season in perfect style with a dominant victory at IRONMAN South Africa, which doubled as this year’s African Championship race.

The Great Dane had work to do after the swim but a trademark uber biking display saw him destroy the course record and took him to the front – after which he was never threatened.

T100 World Champion Marten Van Riel (BEL), in only his second full-distance race, ticked off his main objective of qualifying for the IRONMAN World Championship with an impressive second place.

And Germany’s Jonas Schomburg, who just last month raced at the sprint distance WTCS Abu Dhabi, excelled at the other end of the extreme when he rounded out the podium on his IRONMAN debut.

Swim – MVR leads it out

It’s always been a testing swim at this race and today was no exception, with two loops and an Aussie exit in the middle.

But a group of four – three with short-course speed in Van Riel, Schomburg and Jamie Riddle (RSA) – along with the swim power of Andrew Horsfall-Turner (GBR) put distance between themselves and the rest.

Van Riel was out first and at this point the biggest surprise was arguably the fact that Ditlev was in a group at +2:27 back.

Bike – Ditlev shatters course record

Things were also challenging on the rolling bike course in the windy conditions.

Much of IRONMAN debutant Riddle’s hard work was undone when he apparently went the wrong way out of transition to lose a minute in the process.

It was Schomburg who led the way but when things settled down it was Van Riel and a charging Ditlev who were his two closest challengers, around a minute back at halfway.

That gap continued to come down rapidly and it was Ditlev who eased past Schomburg and into the lead.

Van Riel was able to hang on for a while but not for long as both he and Schomburg were distanced.

In the last of three loops, Ditlev really put the hammer down to beat the old bike course record by more than seven minutes and by T2 he’d opened up an advantage of over six-and-a-half minutes from Van Riel and Schomburg, who were still locked together.

And they in turn were nearly eight minutes to the good over Horsfall-Turner in fourth.

Run – One-way traffic

Starting the run it looked that barring mishaps we already had our podium, such were the time gaps and the fact the trio all looked comfortable.

Van Riel eased past Schomburg on the first of four laps but he was struggling to make significant inroads on Ditlev.

By the halfway point Ditlev still had six minutes to spare and though the gap came down a little after that, he was never in danger and a 2:40:38 marathon showed it absolutely wasn’t just about his biking prowess.

Van Riel crossed the line four-and-a-half minutes in behind, with the efforts clearly telling on the front two despite their dominance. Still, the Belgian star comfortably achieved his aim of taking one of the five IMWC slots for Nice and he’ll be racing T100 Singapore now next Sunday!

And revelation of the race Schomburg kept on brilliantly to take the final spot on the podium in his first IRONMAN. Jonas Hoffmann (GER) was fourth at +21:05 while Riddle impressed on his first full-distance race in fifth.