British long-distance star Joe Skipper ended 2025 with a 5K PB and is confident of getting back on track in triathlon this year.

Skipper has nine full-distance wins to his name but the most recent of those came at IRONMAN Lake Placid in 2023 and the last couple of seasons have been a struggle.

But a runner-up spot at IRONMAN New Zealand last March shows the talent remains and he heads into the new campaign full of optimism.

Recent 5K PB

In his latest YouTube video, which is embedded below, it’s clear the recent focus has been on swim and run, though he’s not been neglecting his strongest discipline of the bike.

And he’s looking to hit the ground running having mapped out the opening races of his season, saying: “The plans are to start off with 70.3 Oceanside at the end of March, and then IRONMAN South Africa in April.

“I did a 5K PB on New Year’s Eve and I’ll be doing a few shorter run races. The intentions or the aim of those are to improve my top end, increase my threshold speed, and then hopefully when Oceanside comes around at the end of March, I want to be in about 14:30, 14:40 5K shape – which I think I’ve got a good chance of.

“I’ve got another 5K in six weeks, it’s on a faster course, so automatically my 15-flat (his recent PB was 15:00:52] for the same fitness could be 14:50, 14:52 maybe.

“And the main aim of this 5K in six weeks is just to give me a mini target to focus on. Then two weeks of training to fine tune things for Oceanside and then hopefully start the year with a good race there and then go on to South Africa and have a great one.”

Sponsor blow

But Skipper has had some disappointing news ahead of the campaign – though there is a potential silver lining as it does give him an opportunity to experiment with some different carbon shoes.

He explained: “I’m no longer sponsored by HOKA. I’m not sure if there’s other shoes out there that are faster. There might be. I’ve ordered some Adidas Pro 4s and some Puma Fast-Rs, which I’ve heard are very good.

“And, I’ll be testing them, similar to what you do on the bike, where you try new equipment and you look to see if you can find gains in other areas.

“It was great being sponsored by HOKA since 2018 but unfortunately they dropped me at the start of this year. which was a bit sad.

“It would have been nice for them to tell me in person, but that’s another story. The contract just got kind of left to expire and that was it.

“So now we’re looking for some gains which might potentially be out there. We’ll obviously try the ASICS [Metaspeed] as well at some point but for training shoes I’ll keep using HOKA because I’ve not had any niggles with them or injuries, I’ve found them absolutely fantastic.

“But obviously with racing shoes, I’m gonna have a play around and see if I can gain any free time because I feel like I’d be doing myself an injustice not to try.

“So we’ll see what happens but I think if I can get into 14:40 or under shape going into Oceanside, and with my swimming going really well now then things are in a good place.