Kristian Blummenfelt’s Paris 2024 masterplan, now a year in the making, is going well. And this week in the French capital he takes the next step.
The former IRONMAN and current IRONMAN 70.3 World Champion, who took on a ‘long-distance project’ in 2022, began his return to short-course racing at WTCS Bermuda and the WTCS Grand Final in Abu Dhabi last year. Those races gave him the confidence that he could once again mix it with the best over the Olympic distance.
Now looking ahead to next summer, where he aims to defend his Olympic title, Blummenfelt is fully committed to qualifying for the Games and fighting for a good position in the WTCS rankings.
Paris pontoon position priority
Sharing his reasoning for putting so much emphasis on the WTCS over the next 12 months, Blummenfelt underlined how important his series ranking will be in Paris next year, when it will determine his starting position on the pontoon for the swim.
“This season is maybe the first where I can settle down again and just focus on doing the qualification and being back on the World Series and hopefully fighting for an overall position too.
“The main challenge is to use the series to get the leg speed again, to get the qualification right and to get the ranking high enough that I’m in a good position on the pontoon in Paris next year.”
Currently ranked #10 in the World Triathlon Individual Olympic Qualification Ranking, Blummenfelt is well placed but will want to get as close as possible to that #1 slot and first pick before the racing begins in the French capital next year.
“It put me in a good position in terms of confidence”
Having won the IRONMAN 70.3 World Championships just a few weeks prior, Blummenfelt and compatriot Gustav Iden got straight back into WTCS racing at the end of last year amid much fanfare, with Kristian finishing a confidence-boosting sixth at his first outing in Bermuda.
“I would say I felt okay last year in Bermuda and Abu Dhabi, on the back of our long-distance project, where I finished sixth and eighth with little preparation, so I felt quite relieved and it put me in a good position in terms of confidence for this season.
“Watching on TV, seeing how Hayden, Alex and Matt had been running, you don’t get the same understanding of how fast they were running, so to get that experience of how they were running at the end of last season was really good.”
After a rocky start to the year, with sickness interrupting training ahead of the first WTCS race in Abu Dhabi, Blummenfelt has been slowly progressing, with fourth at WTCS Hamburg and fifth at WTCS Montreal in recent months showing that the Norwegian is trending in the right direction.
This week, he will have another shot at the podium in Paris, a fortnight after finishing third at the PTO Tour US Open in Milwaukee. If he has recovered sufficiently, the Bergen-born star could kill two birds with one stone in Paris, by securing his Olympic qualification whilst announcing his return to the top of the sport.
