The men’s 2025 Ironman World Championships Nice in pictures

Norway’s Caspar Stornes celebrates winning his first-ever Ironman race – the 2025 Ironman World Championship in Nice, France, on his Champs debut. Stornes’s winning time of 7:51:36 included a 2:29:22 marathon, the first time any triathlete had gone sub-2:30hrs in an Ironman Worlds. Stornes also lobbed an impressive 15mins off 2023 champion Sam Laidlow’s winning time on the same course.

Friends, family and onlookers fill the Promenade des Anglais, Nice, France, for the start of the 2025 Ironman World Championship men’s race. Some 2,500 (including 59 pros) athletes competed in this year’s champs – up from the 2,200 who raced the men’s Worlds here in 2023 – and represented 86 countries, regions and territories.

Sam Laidlow (FRA) stretches out in T1 after cramping in both hip flexors during the swim leg, which even saw him doing backstroke at one point. “I couldn’t wait to get out of the water to be honest,” he admitted at the line. The 2025 Roth and IM Leeds winner would finish fifth thanks in large part to a race-best, 4:29:29, 180km bike split.

The pro men are closely monitored from all angles during the 3.8km swim leg. Two-time triathlon Olympian Andrea Salvisberg (SUI) would be the first to hit T1 after clocking the fastest-ever Ironman world championship pro swim time of 45:11mins.

The 2024 world champion Patrick Lange (GER) shoots out of T1 after a “solid swim”. On his Instagram, he continued: “struggled a lot on the bike, but ran myself back with a 2:31h marathon”. In fact, he would run his way into ninth place up from 27th at the end of the bike.

Following a third-place finish in 2023 and a second in 2024, Denmark’s Magnus Ditlev had been hoping to complete the World Champs set in 2025. Illness in the lead-up week would derail the Great Dane’s day, however, and see him clock his first-ever DNF after pulling out mid-marathon.

Belgium’s Marten Van Riel en route to finishing fourth at his Ironman Worlds’ debut. “Very proud of the way I raced,” he would post on Instagram. “[…] unfortunately the chasers caught me in the last kilometers of the bike and I knew it was going to be a difficult day on the run. A 4th is obviously painful and I want more, but the Norwegian train was too fast.”

“Professional sport is brutal” The words of GB’s Harry Palmer, who was the last of the pro finishers in 40th place. “I had a great swim, pushed hard on the bike […] and then on the run the lights went out hard. […] The level of the sport has been elevated so much. It’s kinda scary but also super motivating. […] I’ll be back.”

GB’s Joe Skipper would finish top Brit in 26th place. “It was just really hard on the bike – flat out and hang on for as long as you can,” he told 220 at the line. “I blew up a bit and then just tried to recover and the marathon was just tough with the wind. It was just a really hard day.”

The 180km, one-loop bike course in Nice is considered one of the most challenging and spectacular on the Ironman circuit, featuring 2,427m of elevation gain from the Mediterranean Sea into the Alpes-Maritimes and back. The course will remain on the calendar as part of Ironman France, but next year’s World Champs will return to Kona, Hawaii, for both the men’s and women’s races.

Gustav Iden and Kristian Blummenfelt had led from the start of the marathon, both clocking sub-2:30hr pace for the first half. But by the start of the third lap of four, their compatriot Caspar Stornes was back in the mix and sniffing victory.

Stornes congratulates Iden as he crosses the line in second place with a time of 7:54:13 (47:14 swim, a 4:30:17 second-fastest bike leg and a 2:32:15 third-best marathon). “It’s not the ultimate comeback I dreamed of but I’m still super pleased with how things turned out,” the 2022 world champion told 220.

“To run 2:32 for my best ever marathon is pretty crazy. I was super afraid of Kristian’s kick towards the end so tried to hold a high average pace to tire him out a bit. The tactics were okay, but I don’t think any tactics would have beaten Casper today.”

Kristian Blummenfelt finishes in third place in 7:56:36, having just about kept crippling leg cramps at bay, and completes a Norwegian podium clean sweep. “What a day in Nice,” says the 2021 world champion on Instagram. “Sweeping the podium at an @ironmantri world championship with your best friends doesn’t happen too often! Huge congrats to @casperstornes for his first world title.”

Three Norwegians, three friends, three sub-8hr finish times, three world titles, three of the greats.

Check out how the women got on this year in our Ironman Kona World Champs gallery.