Kristian Blummenfelt has dubbed 2025 as his “revenge season” as he looks to get back to winning ways in the races that really matter to him.
The Norwegian superstar has won pretty much every top-tier event since taking gold at the Tokyo Olympics – including both the 70.3 and IRONMAN World Championships.
But 2024 proved far more difficult. ‘Big Blu’ had targeted both the defence of his Olympic crown in Paris and then the IRONMAN World Championship in Kona, but didn’t go close in either in what he’s termed a year of “failure”.
Training for 2025 resumed in earnest at the start of December and will be all systems go until his first races this season in April.
Both he and compatriot Gustav Iden will take a more hands-on role in their race preparation too as long-time coach Olav Aleksander Bu will be spending the majority of his time in pro cycling, having taken up a new role at Uno-X.
Back to basics
In the latest episode of the Santara Tech ‘Norwegian Method’ series, which is embedded below, Blummenfelt explains: “I guess we have to go back to [our] roots – hard work, tons of hours, train more, train harder.”
Both he and Iden had pretty much the whole of November off after deciding to swerve the 70.3 Worlds in New Zealand, with Blummenfelt admitting: “It’s been the longest period of time where I haven’t really trained in my whole career.
“Olav now is heading more into pro cycling as head coach of Uno-X so he will be a little bit less involved in the daily training. Me and Gustav will take a little bit more responsibility [around that].
“We will be taking the same philosophy and in six weeks time the three of us will head into the lab and discuss how training has been, look at the results and make a plan for the next four, five or six weeks.
“The plan is then to start off the season in April with two American races [70.3 Oceanside and IRONMAN Texas].”
Rumours rife over Nice
Reflecting more on last year’s campaign, he added: “It was a humbling 2024 but I’m not done yet.
“I feel excited, I feel hungry, I feel motivated – 2025 is revenge season.”
The IRONMAN Pro Series is now the priority and top of his list of targets is the men’s IRONMAN World Championship which will be held in Nice for a second time as part of the rotation with Kona between 2023 and 2026.
Blummenfelt added: “Rumour has it that it might be the last time we are heading to Nice. I don’t know [but] if so I want to have that under my belt.
“It’s a beautiful course and that’s going to be the ‘A’ race.”
