Jan Frodeno announces final year schedule
Three-time Kona champ says Nice course will be a "big challenge"
Photo by:
Kevin Mackinnon
In 2019 Jan Frodeno made it clear that he wouldn’t try to defend his Ironman 70.3 world title for a couple of reasons: he was determined to regain his Ironman world title (which he did, in record setting time in what he called the “golde race” of his career), but also because he felt the course in Nice didn’t suit him at all. In what he’s announced as his “last year of full professional racing,” though, he has no choice – to go after another Ironman World Championship, he’ll have to take on the challenging Nice bike course with it’s 2,400 m of climbing.
In a post on Instagram today Frodeno announced his schedule for his farewell tour that all builds towards the Ironman World Championship in Nice.
View this post on Instagram
Opener in California
Things will “kick off” at Ironman 70.3 Oceanside, a race where Frodeno has “always liked to kick things off,” he said.
The next up will be the PTO European Open which is slated for May 6. No word on the venue for that race at this point.
A month later Frodeno will return to the Ironman European Championship, but rather than Frankfurt, this year the race will take place in Hamburg on June 4th.
“Hamburg has such a huge history for me personally,” the German 2008 Olympic champ said, “being the home World Cup back in the day … its a city that lives and breathes triathlon, so I can’t wait to see what Ironman is all about over there.”
He’ll follow that up with another million-dollar PTO event – the US Open in Milwaukee in August.
“The season wraps up with the Ironman World Championship in Nice,” Frodeno said. “It’s a big big challenge for me. But living here in the mountains, its giving me the one hope of preparing well for that race.”
Frodeno hasn’t finished a race since dominating the field at the 2021 Collins Cup. He was slated to compete at Ironman California that fall, but the race was cancelled due to a storm. He then turned his sights to Ironman South Africa a few weeks later, only to get sick. An Achilles tendon injury sidelined him for much of 2022 – he was forced to pull out of Challenge Roth early in the marathon last year due to the injury. Then, last August, we learned that the three-time Kona champ was done for the year after he was involved in a bike crash that necessitated a series a surgeries. That meant that the much anticipated racing between Frodeno and fellow Olympic champ Kristian Blummenfelt and his countryman Gustav Iden never took place. With the two Norwegians focussed on getting to the Paris Olympics next year, we might not ever get to see the three compete over the full distance.
“I’m looking forward to racing, getting out there, measuring up and seeing where the sport has gone these last few years,” Frodeno said.
