someone coming off of the Olympics simply hoping to validate for the IRONMAN World Championship, Kristian Blummenfelt had himself a day in Frankfurt. The Norwegian superstar was coy in his pre-race remarks about his chances of winning today’s race. Blummenfelt said: “Last week we had a mixed relay in Paris. So, it’s like almost 10 days ago, and that’s like a 20-minute race versus seven hours, 40 minutes or eight hours – it’s a completely different energy system.” It was not unrealistic to think that Blummenfelt would have his hands full with such a strong field assembled. As the race progressed, however, Blummenfelt was always near the front. The strongest swimmers in the field were not able to get any separation, as he came out of the water in the lead group. Uber-biker Kristian Hogenhaug built a small lead in the back half of the ride. Blummenfelt was in a perfect position in the chase pack and would run into the lead before the 10k mark. From there, the only question was if he would set the fastest marathon split ever recorded in an IRONMAN. In the end, he would clock a 2:32, good for the 3rd fastest split all-time, only behind two marks held by Patrick Lange. Blummenfelt crossed the finish line in 7:27:21, setting an IRONMAN Frankfurt course record.
After his stellar performance, Blummenfelt said, “I’m quite surprised. I felt I came in with really not much preparation, really lack of riding the TT bike, barely done any long runs. I was realistically thinking go out as normal and expect the wall to hit me quite early on the bike.” Blummenfelt would go on to say that at the 160k point of the ride he realized he was towards the front of the race and could run for the podium if he was feeling good. It was clear that that was the case, as he reached the lead quickly and went on to win by nearly 5 minutes over a class field. Kieran Lindars, donning bib number forty-eight, was a surprise 2nd. Gregory Barnaby came 3rd. Blummenfelt reasoned that he might have trained a bit too heavy on the aerobic capacity side of things heading into Paris versus training his speed. He can now put his Olympic campaign behind him and look forward to trying to win for the first time in Kona – maybe the only thing missing from his very impressive resume.
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