The IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship in Nice on Saturday delivered one of the sharpest men’s races the distance has produced in years. Hayden Wilde won it. Kristian Blummenfelt should have with the run time he posted. Jelle Geens, who had won each of the previous two editions, was chasing history and had to settle for third. And three Sync athletes lined up on one of the most demanding bike courses on the calendar, in three very different positions in the year, and produced three very different days.
At the Front: Wilde Clings On
Wilde got to the front, went to the front, and did what he had to do to hold it. He won in 3:50:51 with a 1:07:21 run split, and he ran it, as it turned out, without a watch. He raced the last laps on feel because his pacing data had gone dark, as in dark is droping his watch running out of T2. In hindsight, given what was coming behind him, not knowing may have been a competitive advantage.
Behind him, Kristian Blummenfelt exited T2 in 16th place and more than two and a half minutes off the leaders. What happened next is the story of the day.
Blummenfelt’s Run: Fastest Half-Marathon in 70.3 History
Blummenfelt covered the 21.1km run leg in 1:05:12. It is believed to be the fastest half-marathon split ever recorded at a 70.3 event. He caught 14 men on the run and finished 18 seconds behind Wilde. It is his second consecutive runner-up finish at 70.3 Worlds, both by narrow margins, both from positions the field had already written off.
Jelle Geens, the two-time defending champion coming in, put together the second-fastest run of the day at 1:07:12 and still fell just short in third (3:52:40). The three-peat was not to be. Behind him: Gustav Iden fourth (3:53:16), Lasse Nygaard Priester fifth, Casper Stornes sixth. Jamie Riddle, Jonas Schomburg, Sam Dickinson and Michele Bortolamedi rounded out the top ten.
The Sync Athletes at Nice
Three of our athletes on the men’s start line, three genuinely different stories on the day.
Seth Rider — 14th, 3:57:07
Seth’s day is the one that reads like a script. In his inSync feature published the week before the race, filmed on the Nice course itself, he told us the descent was going to be where the racing quietly got decided, and that his short-course bike-handling background was going to give him an edge on the way back down.
He then went out and posted the fastest swim split of any man in the field (23:28) and the second-fastest descent of the day, behind only Gustav Iden. Called shot, delivered shot. Fourteenth overall in 3:57:07, top American man on the day, and a performance that keeps him firmly in the mix as he pivots toward the WTCS Grand Final in Pontevedra next week.
For an athlete whose day job is short course, and who is racing 70.3 Worlds inside a build pointing at an Olympic-distance Grand Final, 14th at Nice is a serious confirmation of the crossover fitness he has been quietly building all year.
Josh Ferris — 15th, 3:57:20
Josh crossed the line 13 seconds behind Seth, but his day is defined by a bike split that stands up in any company: 2:17:09, the fifth-fastest ride of the top twenty and on par with the athletes riding for the podium. His own read on the day was quiet, confident, and quietly damning of the assumption that you need to be in Europe to race at this level.
“The bike course was easily the most dynamic course I’ve ever raced on, and none of the way I rode was a surprise to me. I hit my numbers almost exactly as I had planned. Like everyone I train hard, and being isolated in Australia it’s good to know what we are doing is working at the very best level. But my profile and the way I rode was exactly how I train and was exactly how I planned.”
That is the sound of an athlete whose preparation matched the moment. Josh is next up at 70.3 Port Macquarie in October, followed by Laguna Phuket Triathlon, with a hope of adding more starts to close out the year.
Nathan Guerbeur — 29th, 4:03:39
Nathan’s Nice was the honest side of a season that has already produced a Kona slot and a story of resilience. His own summary, sent from the ground the day after the race, does not dress it up.
“29th place, not the result I came for. The sensations just weren’t there from the swim, and it continued onto the bike, where I never really managed to express the level I know I’m capable of right now. The run, however, was more positive, with better sensations and the ability to stay focused and fight all the way to the finish line.” — Nathan Guerbeur
With his coach, Nathan is already working through the preparation. The tight turnaround from his altitude camp in Font-Romeu and a potentially thin taper are among the areas under review. His conclusion is the one that matters.
“One thing is certain: the fitness is there. The training data we’ve seen over the past few weeks is very promising and confirms that my fitness is at a very high level. We simply weren’t able to translate it into performance on race day in Nice.” — Nathan
The season’s target has not moved. Nathan is on the start line at Kona on 10 October, and the Nice ride is being treated for what it is: a valuable experience, and an opportunity to learn with just a few weeks to go before the main goal.
What Nice Tells Us Going Into Kona
Three weeks to the IRONMAN World Championship in Kona. The Nice bike course punished any athlete who arrived a touch under-prepared, and rewarded the ones who could hold a position honestly over the climbs and technically on the way back down. The Queen K asks a different set of questions, in different conditions, at a different distance. But the athletes who translated their training into a performance on Saturday are the athletes who arrive at Kona with real momentum.
For the Sync program, three athletes on a start line at the biggest 70.3 of the year, with three different stories on the day, is the reality of a professional roster. The AB03 rode under all three. The days looked different because the athletes had different days. Nice was a marker. Kona is the next one.
