The finish line came downhill, and Kristian Blummenfelt met it as a champion. On 7 May 2022, in St George, Utah, the Norwegian won the 2021 IRONMAN World Championship at his first attempt over the full distance, stopping the clock at 7:49:16 for a championship record. Racing only his second full-distance event, he became the first male triathlete to win the title on debut since Belgium's Luc van Lierde in 1996, taking the tape in 7:49:16 with a 2:38:01 marathon.
The day was never simple. Blummenfelt was only passed fit to race the day before the start, twenty-four hours before he became triathlon's new long-distance king. It was the first time the race had moved from the Big Island of Hawaii, and it came despite numerous withdrawals, including reigning champion Jan Frodeno, Britain's Alistair Brownlee and Blummenfelt's training partner Gustav Iden.
Patience, then the run
Coming out of the water in the Sand Hollow reservoir 2:10 behind, Blummenfelt found himself in no man's land, between the lead group of five and a chasing pack headed by professional cyclist Cameron Wurf, Lionel Sanders and Sam Long. He was eventually swept up by the Wurf train late on the bike, and reached the second transition with Wurf as they positioned for a glory bid. The deficit to the leaders was still substantial when the marathon began.
That was awesome, but such a tough day on a brutal course. But luckily I was able to jump on the train of Cameron Wurf and he was surging hard up the hills.
So he ran harder than planned. He had expected just under four-minute-per-kilometre pace given the climbs, but had to go out hard to catch the front, worried early that he was moving faster than he should. The 28-year-old took the lead for the first time with nine miles to go, breezing past New Zealand's Braden Currie through an aid station. Behind him the podium was decided in the closing metres: Currie was then overtaken in the final few hundred metres, hunted down by Canadian Lionel Sanders with the finish line almost in sight.
A place in the trajectory
The victory completed a rare collection. Blummenfelt had won Olympic gold at the Tokyo Games in July 2021, then the World Triathlon short-course world title in Edmonton that August. St George added the IRONMAN crown, making him the first triathlete to hold all three at once. His pedigree over distance was already known — a 70.3 world best of 3:25:21 in Bahrain in 2019, and a full-distance world best of 7:21:11 in Cozumel the previous November. Utah confirmed that the range extended to the sport's oldest title.
What followed only sharpened the picture: the first sub-seven-hour IRONMAN distance at the Sub7 project a month later, and, years on, a laboratory VO2 max still climbing past a hundred. St George was the day the short-course champion became a champion over everything.
He called it the greatest finish line he had ever known.
