Norwegian great Kristian Blummenfelt has already started plotting “revenge on Sam Laidlow” after the Frenchman produced a masterclass display – and tactics – to beat him at Challenge Roth on Sunday.

It was Blummenfelt’s first appearance at the iconic Bavarian race and he must have felt like his rivals had ganged up on him to make sure it wasn’t a winning debut.

A WhatsApp group was supposedly created to help some of the strongest swimmers join forces to try and distance ‘Big Blu’ in the water, a tactic which worked to perfection as Laidlow and co took three minutes out of him before T1.

And the pattern continued on the bike as Laidlow and German pair Rico Bogen and Jonas Schomburg drove the advantage up to double figures.

That proved too much for Blummenfelt, even with his famed run speed, to make up on the marathon and he had to settle for second place, with Bogen rounding out the podium in third.

‘Sam has stepped up his game’

Having carried all before him this season, including an incredible win at IRONMAN Texas, it was an unaccustomed position for Blummenfelt to be in but chatting the day after to Laura Siddall, on the ground in Roth for TRI247, it’s clearly added fuel to the fire for the rest of the season.

That starts with a return to an altitude camp in St Moritz and then it’s full focus on first the 70.3 Worlds in Nice and then the IRONMAN World Champs in Kona.

Blummenfelt said: “So two World Championships and hopefully revenge on Sam Laidlow because I think it’s more difficult to get away and get that gap in Hawaii than it was here.

“There’s more density to the field in Kona which means that normally there are more people between those top five swimmers and down to me and I think that would have made it a little bit easier to stay in that group.

“Hopefully we can do another podium sweep,” he said in reference to the Norway 1-2-3 last year and added: “But now it seems like Sam Laidlow has stepped up his game.”

‘A race I want to win’

And it also means there’s unfinished business at Roth, an event he described as “epic” following his first appearance.

But he added: “Being beaten, I don’t want that to happen again.

“Roth is definitely a race I want to win.

“Coming into the stadium not in second position but in first and crossing that finish line first is something I need to experience.”