The Norwegian duo of Casper Stornes and Gustav Iden will line up at IRONMAN Frankfurt later this month as the pair seek to hone their preparations for another crack at Kona glory.
Having decided not to join training partner and compatriot Kristian Blummenfelt at Challenge Roth, the pair instead head up a field which also includes the likes of Magnus Ditlev (DEN), Jamie Riddle (SAF) and Vincent Luis (FRA).
The race, which also doubles up as the European Championship, follows on from the women’s event, which took place in Hamburg last weekend and was won by another Norwegian, Solveig Løvseth.
Currently training in St Moritz
Stornes and Iden both struggled with early-season injuries and, as a result, have not raced as much as their colleague Blummenfelt, who has already won a full-distance IRONMAN in Texas and two 70.3s at Oceanside and Geelong this year.
The trio are currently training in St Moritz, but while Big Blu is headed to Bavaria on July 5 to face Sam Laidlow (FRA) and Patrick Lange (GER) at Roth, Iden and Stornes will be diving into the Langener Waldsee as part of the 71-man pro field in Frankfurt.
Stornes has managed two third places in his two races so far this season – the 70.3 at Oceanside and IRONMAN Texas – and has a history of performing well in Germany, having finished third in Frankfurt last year.
Former IRONMAN and IRONMAN 70.3 World Champion Iden was also last year’s IRONMAN World Champion runner-up to Stornes and will no doubt be chasing a podium place after finishing fourth in the 2025 edition.
Eager to get his season underway
Three-time Challenge Roth winner Ditlev will make his long-anticipated season debut, hoping for a strong comeback after injury and illness delayed his start to 2026. He posted on Instagram last week how he had fallen ill before Texas and that it had taken longer than expected to recover.
“Arrived in Sierra Nevada for the second altitude camp of the year,” he said: “I still haven’t started my season yet due to the sickness I got before Ironman Texas that ended up taking some time to recover from. But I’m hoping to be back on a start line very soon!”
He will be hoping that his latest training camp will be enough to prepare him for the second half of the season, where he also needs to secure a Kona qualification spot – there are six pro spots available in Frankfurt for this race.
Ditlev has finished on the podium twice at the IRONMAN World Championship (2024, 2023) and has a string of other accolades to his name, including the 2025 IRONMAN African Championship, and is a major threat at any start line.
Six Kona spots up for grabs
Also eyeing a Kona slot will be 2024 IRONMAN Pro Series champion, Italy’s Gregory Barnaby, who had a taste of success in Frankfurt back in 2024 when he finished third.
Back for redemption following the heartbreak of struggling at his home IRONMAN in South Africa and seeing his race end with a horrible fall at the 70.3 in Aix-en-Provence is Jamie Riddle (SAF), who will be expected to play a big role in the early stages of the race.
Representing Great Britain, Kieran Lindars will be in Frankfurt after a second-place finish in 2024 and an unfortunate DNF in 2025. Lindars has already secured his slot for Kona with an impressive eighth-place finish at IRONMAN Texas.
Luis will also be high on everyone’s top picks after an outstanding IRONMAN debut in Texas saw him finish fourth amongst a high-calibre field.
Officials aware of Hamburg ‘sabotage’
Jonas Hoffman (GER) is also set to return after finishing fifth last year and will be joined by a strong contingent of German athletes looking to make their mark on home soil, including Finn GroĂźe-Freese, Wilhelm Hirsch, Jan Stratmann, Florian Angert and Paul Schuster.
Race officials in Frankfurt will no doubt be aware of the sabotage issues faced in Hamburg, where metal and glass shards were seemingly thrown onto the bike course as part of a protest against the road closures.
It is thought that more than 100 age-group athletes were forced to DNF as a result of punctures, and IRONMAN has revealed that it is working with police to not only track down the perpetrators but also ensure something like this never happens again.
