Gustav Iden gained the Ironman Kona World Championship in a course report time, turning into the second consecutive Norwegian to win the lads’s world title and the primary to take action in Kona.
Iden, 26, clocked an unofficial 7 hours, 40 minutes, 24 seconds for the 140.6-mile race (2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike, 26.2-mile run) with temperatures within the 80s on the Huge Island of Hawaii.
“That was so freakin’ exhausting,” Iden mentioned. “The final 10K, I used to be nervous concerning the legend of the island killing me. … The island actually, actually tried to place me down, however I feel my coronary heart have to be stronger than the legend of the island. That was so, so epic.”
He crushed the course report of seven:51:13 set by German Jan Frodeno the final time Kona held the occasion in 2019. The race was canceled in 2020 because of the pandemic. The 2021 version was postponed to this previous Could and moved to St. George, Utah, the place one other Norwegian, Kristian Blummenfelt, prevailed.
The lads’s course report has been lowered on the final 4 editions of Kona relationship to 2017. Going into the 2017 race, the course report was 8:03:56.
IRONMAN KONA: Outcomes
Iden additionally broke the course report for the marathon run, protecting the roads in 2:36:15 and turning into the primary individual in race historical past to common sub-six-minute-mile tempo. The earlier run report was 2:39:45, set by German Patrick Lange in 2016.
Iden wanted a robust run. He trailed Frenchman Sam Laidlow by 6 minutes, 15 seconds, after the bike. Laidlow, 23, broke the bike course report by protecting the 112 miles in 4:04:36. Iden handed Laidlow within the twenty second mile of the run.
Laidlow held for second place, two minutes behind Iden. Blummenfelt, the Tokyo Olympic champion, was third. The highest 4 males all went sooner than the 140.6-mile course report.
Iden, the two-time reigning Half Ironman world champion, grew to become the primary man to win in his Kona debut since Belgian Luc Van Lierde in 1996. Van Lierde was the primary European man or girl to win Kona (which started in 1978). Iden is the ninth consecutive European man to win the Ironman world title.
Iden, eighth within the Tokyo Olympic triathlon, grew to become the youngest man to win Kona since 1982.
“I’m undecided if I’m coming again right here,” Iden mentioned. “This was too exhausting.”
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