It’s just a month to the men’s IRONMAN World Championship in Nice and two months to the women’s version in Kona and the final qualifying spot for each was on offer this weekend.
IRONMAN Kalmar in Sweden was a women’s pro event and was won in impressive style by Denmark’s Katrine Græsbøll Christensen in a course record time.
She reversed the placings with last year’s winner Marlene de Boer (NLD), though with Græsbøll Christensen having already booked her Kona ticket with a third place at IRONMAN South Africa, the spot rolled down to the Dutchwoman in second.
And there were marked similarities at IRONMAN Copenhagen as another athlete on an upward trajectory took the victory in the shape of Finn Große-Freese (GER).
He too was already on the Nice start list by virtue of victory at IRONMAN Austria and he won in dramatic style here, just overhauling local favourite Mathias Lyngsø Petersen late on the run.
Lyngsø Petersen was qualified for Nice as well so the opportunity went down to Jesper Svensson (SWE) in third. However he declined it and it rolled to fourth-placed Zachary Cooper (GBR).
Here’s how the two races played out…
IRONMAN Kalmar – women
Græsbøll Christensen, who only turned pro in 2023, was making it back to back successes having won IRONMAN 70.3 Kraków two weeks ago.
It was Britain’s Hannah Munday who led out the swim in 48:49 by just a few seconds from Chelsea Sodaro (USA), with with de Boer third at +2:32 and Græsbøll Christensen eighth at 6:59.
Sodaro, the 2022 IRONMAN World Champion, was looking to validate her Kona slot by finishing and “racing competitively” and she said afterwards that was “maybe my best ever” swim.
Early on the bike Sodaro moved to the front ahead of de Boer but it had all changed by midway with de Boer having opened up a commanding lead.
By T2 she was 4:28 ahead of Græsbøll Christensen, with Sodaro at 6:23 in third.
However it all closed up on the run and the catch came just after the halfway point when Græsbøll Christensen moved into the lead.
It was an advantage she never looked like relinquishing and she crossed the line in 8:27:49 to smash the course record.
De Boer was just over five minutes back in second but had the big consolation prize of that Kona spot.
And Sodaro, at +17:52 in third, ticked off her validation and later posted on Instagram: “My day was brutal and long. Stoked to validate for Kona. We’ve got eight weeks to make some good gains and be ready for the big day.”
IRONMAN Copenhagen – men
Lyngsø Petersen and Große-Freese were bibs #1 and #2 and they would occupy the top two spots at the end of the day – though the order was only decided in the last couple of kilometres.
Große-Freese led a big swim pack which saw the first 10 men within 33 seconds of each other.
On the bike Emil Holm (DEN) moved to the front and 58km in he had built a lead of almost exactly two minutes.
But there were strength in numbers behind and the gap was down to just 30 seconds at the halfway point.
The second half of the bike was the Rasmus Svenningsson (SWE) show as he produced a stunning time of 3:54:00 – nearly all of his rivals were over four hours – to power into the lead.
But he would exit relatively early on the run and it was Lyngsø Petersen who then took charge.
His lead over Große-Freese would approach three minutes but in the closing stages it did start to close up markedly.
With 5km remaining it was down to 1:04 and the catch came less then 2km from the line as Große-Freese swooped past and went on to win by 35 seconds in 7:27:34, with Svensson the first non-qualified athlete for Nice at 2:35 back in third. However he elected not to take the spot which was great news for Cooper in fourth.
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