The ITU goes long(er) for its Long Distance World Champs in 2020

The fourth edition of the ITU Multisport World Championships will take place in Almere, Netherlands next September, hosted by the Challenge Almere team. Confirmed today, the ITU Long Distance Triathlon World Championships distances will be the over the full / iron distance, rather than the typical intermediate 3km / 120km / 30km format of recent ITU World Championship events.

Two years ago in 2017, Joe Skipper (pictured above) won the ETU Long Distance Triathlon European Championships at the same event (and over the same distances), with Great Britain’s Laura Siddall repeating that European Championships result last year in Madrid.

It has been a while… but this will not be the first time that the ITU Long Distance World’s has been iron-distance. Back in 2001, the championships were also held in iron-distance format in Fredericia, Denmark. I should know, because I’ve still got the medal and finisher t-shirt.

Here is the full announcement today from ITU.

ITU Long Distance World Championships 2020 to be held over a 3.8km swim,180km bike and 42.2km run

The ITU Executive Board has approved that the ITU Long Distance World Championships 2020, to be held during the Multisport World Championships in Almere, will be held over the classic long distance 3.8km swim, 180km cycle and 42.2km run.

ITU is doing an exception accepting this distance, instead of the regular ITU distance for the Long Distance World Championships used in the last three editions of the Multisport World Championships, but the technical difficulties in the circuit in Almere made this the only possible option.

The ITU Sports and Operations team has reviewed on-site all the possible courses to guarantee a fair and safe competition venue for the race, and has decided to move on to the 3.8km-180km-42.2km distance, even though the next edition in 2021 will go back to the ITU long distance: 3km swim, 120km cycle and 30km run.

The ITU Long Distance World Championship is the final event in a week of ITU World Championship Multisports, taking place between September 4 and 13, 2020 in Almere-Amsterdam, the Netherlands. It will be the fourth edition of this engaging and successful format, that has been organized in Penticton (Canada); Fyn (Denmark) and Pontevedra (Spain) the years before, and will move to Townville, Australia, in 2021.