There are big changes coming in 2023 for the Ironman World Championship, it's been announced.
Following rumours in the media, Ironman released a statement outlining its plans to hold the men's and women's world championships on different days and in different locations in 2023.
Ironman says it's taken the move to "ensure that both professional and amateur women and men have a focused Ironman World Championship race experience."
While the women's event will stay in Kona for 2023, and take place on 14 October, the men's race date and location are yet to be officially announced.
However, reports claim that the men's pro and age-group races will now take place in Nice, France, on 10 September.
The following year, in 2024, Ironman has confirmed that the races will swap around, with the men competing in Kona and the women competing in Nice.
And it sounds as if things will continue in this vein for the foreseeable future, with the statement from Ironman reading: "With the future dual host locations and separation of race weeks, the women’s and men’s races will each garner further attention with all eyes focused on the race week activities and lead up to their respective Ironman World Championship race days."
The news comes following the first Ironman World Championship to hold a men's and women's race on separate days, which was widely praised for its ability to allow both men and women their own day in the spotlight.
However, there were some issues with this year's world champs, with prices soaring and Ironman reportedly struggling to recruit volunteers for two days of racing.
The impact on the local community was also seen to be significant, particularly with one of the race days coming on a weekday. Speaking about the news, Hawaii county Mayor Mitch Roth said: "Hawaii County has long enjoyed partnering with Ironman and this year’s epic races were another example of world-class athletic competition held on the traditional Kona-Kohala world championship course."
"We learned, however, that more than one race day during ironman week is too many for the community to manage. We are pleased that Ironman plans to return to Kailua-Kona as a co-host of the 2023 VinFast Ironman World Championship and look forward to more exciting events in the future.”
Given the expected date change for the men's event, this could spell trouble for any Brits hoping to race both Ironman Wales and the Ironman World Championship, as the two events would be just one week apart.
Meanwhile, its suggested that the standard Ironman France Nice event will still take place in June as planned and won't be affected by the men's world champs travelling to the city in September.
We've reached reached out to Ironman for comment and will update this article when we hear back.
Top image credit: Tom Pennington/Getty Images for Ironman
