Ironman South Africa: Riddle and Marquardt Set for Season-Opening Showdown
Following Ironman Texas, a standout weekend of racing will continue in South Africa.
@t100triathlon
The triathlon world is in for a standout weekend of racing.
On Saturday, Ironman Texas will deliver what many are calling the most competitive regular-season Ironman field ever assembled (see our full race preview here). But the action doesn’t end there.
On Sunday, the action will head to South Africa, where on the men’s side, two names stand out immediately: Matthew Marquardt and Jamie Riddle.
The pair have met twice before, with Marquardt getting the better of Riddle on both occasions – first at Ironman Cairns in 2025, where he took the win as Riddle finished fourth, and again at the most reent Ironman World Championship in Nice, where Marquardt placed eighth to Riddle’s tenth.
But that head-to-head record doesn’t tell the full story. In Nice, Riddle was a central figure in the race, spending much of the day at the front as part of a lead trio (along with Marten Van Riel and Jonas Schomburg) in his Ironman World Championship debut. It was a performance that signalled not just ability, but a willingness to take risks and commit fully.
Marquardt, meanwhile, brings a different kind of momentum into the race. His preparation has been unconventional, coming off the Absa Cape Epic – an eight-stage, 700km mountain bike race he completed in March as part of a fundraising initiative in partnership with the Ironman Foundation.
Despite the demands of the event, Marquardt maintained his swim and run training throughout, treating the Absa Cape Epic less as a race and more as a platform for a broader cause (one that saw him raise funds to support access to bike and swim lessons for children in South Africa).
For both men, this marks their first triathlon of the 2026 season. They’ll be joined by a number of other notable names, including Greg Barnaby, Pieter Heemeryck, and Joe Skipper.
On the women’s side, Katrine Graesboll Christensen enters as the favourite. She enjoyed a strong 2025 season, claiming victories at Ironman Sweden and Ironman 70.3 Krakow, and has already opened her 2026 campaign with a win at Challenge Sir Bani Yas.
Notable athletes joining her on the start list include Laura Jansen, Rebecca Anderbury, Penny Slater, and Daisy Davies.