This is a preview of the race – click here for full report and reaction as Chelsea Sodaro stunned many of the sport’s biggest names to become IRONMAN World Champion.
Finally, after three years of global pandemic induced delays, the IRONMAN World Championship is back in Kailua-Kona on the big island of Hawaii.
Not only that, but the racing will take place twice, with day one – featuring the Pro Women – being held two days prior to the traditional ‘second Saturday in October’.
The age-group events are also split across both Thursday and Saturday, and so to keep things clean and simple, we’ve also separated our ‘how to watch’ guide into two as well.
Here’s all you need for day one, Thursday 6 October 2022. You can find all the details and coverage for day two separately.
Date, start times & live stream
For the first time in Hawaii, we have the Pro races taking place over two days. The subject of this feature, the Pro Women, will race on Thursday 6 October 2022.
The Pro women will start at 0625 local time. The corresponds to 1725 in the UK, 1825 CET, 0925 Pacific and 1225 Eastern.
The race will be broadcast live via Facebook Watch on the IRONMAN Now channel, and also via IRONMAN Now on YouTube and Twitch.
There will be additional pre-race coverage (the body marking show) from around 0430 local time, in the build-up to the race with interviews and behind-the-scenes content. The IRONMAN commentary is set to be hosted by Michael Lovato and Dede Griesbauer, with Greg Welch, Matt Lieto and Mirinda Carfrae adding on-course reporting.
Perhaps more than ever, the IRONMAN Tracker app on your phone / mobile device, alongside the broadcast coverage, is your essential companion to keep up to date with all of the on-course action.
Race favourites
The defending IRONMAN World Champion – winner of the delayed 2021 event, held in St George in May 2022 – is Switzerland’s Angry Bird, Daniela Ryf. A four-time winner in Hawaii too, she has five IRONMAN World Championship titles to add to her five 70.3 World Championship wins too.
The defending ‘Kona’ champion from 2019 is Germany’s Anne Haug who returns, as does the woman she beat to the title three years ago, Great Britain’s IRONMAN 70.3 World Champion, Lucy Charles-Barclay.
That trio, along with Germany’s Laura Philipp and St George silver medallist, Kat Matthews, were the quintet of athletes from which we believed the 2022 champion will derive. Check out our in-depth thoughts on that assessment.
[UPDATE – Unfortunately Kat Matthews suffered a pre-race collision with a car on a training ride in Texas].
You can click here for the full Pro Women start list for the race.
Full Thursday 6 October 2022 Schedule
While the top Pro athletes will gain the lion’s share of the headlines, the IRONMAN World Championship of course is about a lot more than that.
With the IRONMAN World Championship having not taken place in Kona since 2019, there are a lot of athletes qualified over that period who will be racing this year. In many cases the culmination of many years of effort, that may well be the first and last time that they ever get to experience the big island of Hawaii.
With more athletes in total racing, the Age-Group events will also take place over two days. Here is the schedule for Thursday’s event, which includes all of the female amateurs, along with a subset of the men’s categories.
Prize Money
Just as with the deferred 2021 IRONMAN World Championship held in St George, Utah in May, the total prize purse on offer in Kona is $750,000.
The race winners will earn $125,000 each, with the overall prize pot paying down to 15th position, allocated as follows:
1st – $125,000
2nd – $65,000
3rd – $45,000
4th – $25,000
5th – $20,000
6th – $18,000
7th – $15,000
8th – $13,000
9th – $12,000
10th – $11,000
11th – $8,000
12th – $6,000
13th – $5,000
14th – $4,000
15th – $3,000
Of course, thanks to the formation of the Professional Triathletes Organisation, financial rewards from performance are not solely from on-the-day performances.
As we move into the final quarter of the season, those positions are really starting to firm up, and so the opportunities to move up are becoming fewer. Expect some significant movers to be reflected in the rankings one the numbers have been crunched post-Kona.
The PTO World Rankings will see a total of $2million awarded at the end of 2022, based up on the final standings in those points tables. The rewards there can be substantial, with a move up or down the rankings system potentially earning you more than any individual event.
