IRONMAN World Championship at St George: Replay how the action happened

This is our live blog of the delayed 2021 IRONMAN World Championship at St George – you can get full race reports and results on how Kristian Blummenfelt ruled in the men’s race and Daniela Ryf made a stunning return to top form in the women’s race.

After a two-and-a-half year wait, the IRONMAN World Championship was back and what a day we had in St George, Utah.

A triathlon great showed she had much left to give as Daniela Ryf claimed a fifth crown in emphatic fashion.

The Swiss star surged clear of Britain’s Kat Matthews on the bike and never looked like being caught, with defending champion Anne Haug having to settle for third this time.

And Norway’s Kristian Blummenfelt, just 24 hours after his training partner Gustav Iden was ruled out, showed the hype was fully justified as he powered through on the run to take the spoils on what was just his second Ironman-distance race.

That makes him Olympic champion. World Triathlon champion. IRONMAN World champion. At the same time.

This was the delayed 2021 race – moved to Utah due to the impact of the COVID pandemic in its normal home of Kona, Hawaii. It should return to the ‘Big Island’ in October.

A brutal course welcomed the athletes, though apart from a chilly swim the conditions were relatively favourable.

Our live blog and the official event live stream kept you right up to date with the action and we’ll bring you all the reaction to what unfolded.

What time did the race start?

The men’s PRO race started at 0615 local time, that is 0815 Eastern, 1315 in the UK and 1415 in Central Europe. The women’s PRO race began five minutes later at 0620 local time.

Who was racing in St George?

The field was missing some big names (more on that to come), but we still had two stacked PRO start lists.

Ryf, Matthews and Haug were favourites to win the day in the women’s race – and how they delivered.

Norwegian prodigy Blummenfelt was expected to go well in the men’s race despite a cold in the build up, along with Canadian superstar Lionel Sanders and American ‘Big Unit’ Sam Long.

Who was not racing in St George?

We start with the likely pre-race favourites on both sides when the build-up to this race started. Lucy Charles-Barclay has a stress fracture of the hip while Jan Frodeno has a small partial tear of the Achilles.

Friday, and the eve of the race, brought yet more big-name absentees with the news that Gustav Iden and Alistair Brownlee were both now out.

COVID has stopped some big names taking part too – notably the strongly-fancied German star Laura Philipp, British raider Joe Skipper and Spanish great Javier Gomez.

Another German great – two-time champion Patrick Lange – is out after injuring his shoulder in a bike crash.