Patrick Lange withdraws from Ironman Texas
The reigning Ironman world champion will not toe the line at the North American championships next weekend
Photo by:
Kevin Mackinnon
Ironman world champion Patrick Lange has withdrawn from Ironman Texas due to injury. At the start of April, Canada’s Lionel Sanders and the German world champion went head to head at 70.3 Oceanside along with several other high-profile elites. Sanders won that battle, and he and many of the other top finishers at that race refocused their sights on Ironman Texas. Now, less than a week away from the race, both Sanders and Lange are out of the mix.
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After closing out 2024 with a massive win in Kona (he took home his third world title in a course record time of 7:35:53), it was expected that Lange would ride a wave of momentum into this season, but so far, his 2025 campaign has not gone the way he would have liked. He finished in 17th in Oceanside, crossing the line 12 minutes behind Sanders. Now, he has been forced to pull out of Ironman Texas, which is the site of the North American Championship.
Lange took to Instagram to announce his decision to withdraw from Texas, writing, “Not the update I was hoping to share, but it’s the right one with a long season ahead.” He said that he has dealt with “more than three weeks of pain” in his leg, which has kept him from run training.
“I had an MRI and consulted with medical professionals,” he continued. “The scan showed inflammation in the adductor tendon and it became clear that racing isn’t an option. The risk of turning this into a long-term issue is simply too high. It’s a tough decision, but it’s the right one. Health comes first.”
The field in Texas has lost a bit of its star power after the withdrawals of Lange and Sanders (who had a nagging illness that kept him from training after Oceanside), but it still has several heavy-hitters who will duke it out. Norway’s Kristian Blummenfelt and Gustav Iden will both be in Texas, along with American Rudy Von Berg, Australian Cam Wurf, Denmark’s Daniel Baekkegard, and a number of other top elites. The race is set for April 26.