Fourteen months after Australian Pete Jacobs won the 2012 Ironman World Championship he stated he was training to break the 7:30hrs mark in Kona.
The Australian was widely derided, not just because his own form had slipped dramatically since victory on the Big Island, but that at the time no triathlete had even broken the 8hr mark in Hawaii.
How things have changed. Germany’s Patrick Lange was the first triathlete to achieve the feat in 2018, before Jan Frodeno took it down to 7:51:13 the following year.
And after Gustav Iden’s course record 7:40:24 on 8 October lowered the German’s mark by 11mins, Jacobs musings don’t seem quite as daft after all.
The frightening prospect for the Norwegian's rivals is that his coach, the sports scientist Olav Aleksander Bu, believes we’re merely at the start of what is possible.
A slow Ironman will be 2:35hrs. If you’re slower than 2:35hrs, then you’re really slow
Olav Aleksander Bu
“We know the bike will probably come down another 5mins, but I also know the run will come down at least another 5mins,” said Bu, in the aftermath of Iden’s success.
“For a normal Ironman we will be looking at a 2:25-2:30hr marathon – a slow Ironman will be 2:35hrs. If you’re slower than 2:35hrs, then you’re really slow.”
"Just train more"
These would be numbers that have never been seen in the sport, but could they start retiring current professionals who just can’t compete? “They’ll just have to train more,” Bu added.
Olympic champion Kristian Blummenfelt also finished in 7:43:22 for third place in Hawaii and while onlookers might be surprised by the Norwegians’ Herculean efforts, under Bu’s guidance, nothing the pair have achieved has exceeded expectations – Blummenfelt predicting it would take a 7:40hr split to win Kona.
What Bu hadn't planned for was the brilliance of France’s Sam Laidlow, who split the Nowegian pair on the podium, but he was wholesome in his praise of the 23-year-old who had battled valiantly after starting the run with a 6min advantage.
“I think we could have asked for one small extra thing, but first and third place is okay,” Bu added. “I think the guys could have gone harder on the bike, but nobody expected Sam to hold up like this [Laidlow set a new bike course record of 4:04:36, lowering Cameron Wurf’s existing mark by 5mins].
“The boys had been analysing it before the race and thought this was a little bit how Sam would race, but nobody thought he would be able to run that fast. It was super well executed.”
Two-year wait
Whether or not sub 7:30hrs is possible in Hawaii, Ironman fans might have to wait until at least 2024 for the Norwegians to have another crack at it as a return to short-course racing beckons first.
OIympic success in Paris in two years' time is the next goal and first the pair need qualification points from World Triathlon's World Series.
Iden has all but ruled out defending his Kona crown because he would have to line up in Hawaii just three weeks after the grand finale in Pontevedra, Spain, the biggest race of the 2023 World Series calendar.
While Blummenfelt hinted he might fancy beating the odds to have stab at regaining the title he lost to Iden on Saturday, their more immediate focus is the Ironman 70.3 World Championship in Utah in three weeks' time.
Top image credit: Tom Pennington/Getty Images for Ironman
