After failed short course “project,” Tokyo Olympic gold medalist Kristian Blummenfelt sets his sights on Kona
Ironman world champion recaps disappointing day in Paris and surprisingly great day in Frankfurt
For many of us who have been involved in the sport for a long time, Norway’s Kristian Blummenfelt’s ambitious goal of returning to top of the podium at the Olympics after a few years of long-distance seemed like a long shot. After a disappointing 12th-place finish in Paris, Blummenfelt admits the “project” failed, but not because it’s not possible to make the jump, but rather because the training he did leading up to Paris didn’t work.
“Yes, we failed the project of coming back to short course,” Blummenfelt said in a video recapping his Paris and Ironman European Championship racing (see link below). “That’s the harsh (reality). I don’t think it’s the Ironman racing I did in 2022. I think it’s the decisions we did in training and how we were weighting it in the last 12 months. I wasn’t good enough. It was obviously good enough to be in Ironman shape, but it was tilted a bit in the wrong direction.”
Blummenfelt says that ultimately he didn’t have the running foot-speed to take on the likes of Britain’s Alex Yee and New Zealand’s Hayden Wilde, the gold and silver medalists from Paris.
Since Blummenfelt didn’t win in Paris and receive a wild card entry for the Ironman World Championship in Kona, he was forced to race at the Ironman European Championship in Frankfurt just 13 days after the mixed relay at the Olympics. His Ironman World Championship win in St. George in 2022 provides a slot at the worlds for the next five years, but he still has to validate that slot by finishing a full-distance race or two 70.3 races. In the short time between Paris and Frankfurt he managed four rides on his time trial bike, along with a couple of long runs as prep for the full-distance race. With that in mind, Blummenfelt didn’t think he would be competitive, anticipating he “would be good for about four hours,” then have to suffer through the rest of the race to validate his slot.
Blummenfelt was so relaxed about his chances, he decided he would experiment in transition, taking some extra time to put aero calf sleeves on. It wasn’t until the last 20 km of the bike, when he found out he was just five minutes behind the leader, that Blummenfelt figured he might have a shot at the podium.
“When I started running, I felt untouched from the bike, even though I had been struggling over the last 50 km of the bike,” he said of his fresh legs early in the marathon.
In fact, he felt so good through the early stages of the run, he thought there was a problem with his GPS watch. He went through the half marathon in 1:14, then things started to get a bit rougher.
“On the third lap I started to feel things – not sure if it was lack of preparation or having gone out a bit fast,” Blummenfelt says.
Blummenfelt would be forced into a port-a-potty for a quick pit stop, and shortly after vomited violently a couple of times, but still managed to hold on for an impressive 7:27:21 finish and a 2:32:29 marathon.
All of which sets Blummenfelt up as one of the pre-race favourites heading into Kona. While the “short course” project might have failed, he’s obviously in excellent full-distance condition as he goes after another Ironman World Championship title.