London, UK: Kristian Blummenfelt’s sensational return to long course triathlon and win at Ironman Frankfurt helped him secure the vote for August’s Professional Triathletes Organisation Athlete of the Month award.
After focusing on short course and the Paris Olympics during the first half of this year, the Norwegian star had said before the race in Frankfurt that he would “be patient and pace himself wisely’’. However, he ended up blitzing a more than 80-strong professional men’s field and running the third fastest marathon in history, in a scarcely believable 2:32:29. His overall winning time being 7:27:21.
That performance helped him finish on top of the Athlete of the Month voting, with 14 out of the 15 points available. To beat the other three short-listed athletes:
- Germany’s Caroline Pohle – who led from gun to tape to become 70.3 European Champion in Tallinn. Her second win of the season and best result of her career so far.
- Greece’s Panagiotis Bitados – who’s gone from unranked in June to 45th in the World Rankings after taking the 70.3 European Championship win in Tallinn, making it three wins from three races this season; and
- France’s Charlene Clavel – who swapped handball for triathlon in 2019 and took home the win at the World Triathlon Long Distance Championships in Townsville.
Talking about his win on The Norwegian Method Podcast, Blummenfelt said:
“It’s been nice to come back to long distance racing and I appreciate this award. I went with very limited preparation. When I was standing on the start line I was thinking I’m going to race as hard as I can until the wheels come off. I was prepared to survive for only three or four hours. But I was quite surprised how I was able to hold it together until the second half of the bike. Then, when I started running I felt quite good and bouncy in the stride, so that was a good experience.”
Despite feeling ‘quite good’ at the start of the run, Blummenfelt’s marathon was not without incident as he stopped off for a 25-second toilet break [he timed it, of course].
“I slept well before the race but I hadn’t done the timezone adjustments. Then I woke up at 3am and took the bus to transition at around 4am. I wasn’t able to follow my morning routine before the race. So I still had ‘unfinished business’ during the run,” he explained candidly.
Global Triathlon Network (GTN), Tri-Mag.de, Triathlon Magazine & Triathlete make up the panel of triathlon media who voted on their 1, 2, 3 from a four-athlete shortlist, awarding 3 points for #1, 2 pts for #2 and 1 pt for #3. Votes were also counted from online triathlon fans who had their say via the T100 social handles. Kristian received 14 points with Caroline Pohle securing 10 points to claim second spot.
-ends-
For Further Information:
Anthony Scammell E: [email protected]
About Professional Triathletes Organisation (PTO)
The PTO is a sports body that is co-owned by its professional athletes, seeking to elevate and grow the sport of triathlon and take it to the next level. The T100 Triathlon World Tour is the new name for the PTO Tour and has been designated by World Triathlon as the ‘official World Championship for long distance triathlon’. It is a season-long schedule of eight T100 races during 2024 that are competed over 100km (2km swim, 80km bike and 18km run) and feature the world’s best triathletes going head-to-head in Miami (9 March), Singapore (13-14 April), San Francisco (8-9 June), London (27-28 July), Ibiza (28-29 September), Lake Las Vegas (19-20 October), Dubai (16-17 November) and at the World Championship Final (29-30 November). There will also be racing opportunities for amateurs at all the events, including the new 100km distance at six stages, including: Singapore, London, Ibiza, Lake Las Vegas, Dubai and at the Grand Final. The global broadcast shows the races live around the world in 195+ territories, courtesy of the PTO’s partnership with Warner Bros. Discovery as well as a range of other international, regional and local broadcasters.
