World-best time and more records from this weekend’s Ironman 70.3 World Championship
Taylor Knibb becomes the fastest ever, a prime minister races and more from a big weekend in Finland
Photo by:
Ville Kaskivirta / Ironman
It certainly was a big weekend of racing in Lahti, Finland this weekend as athletes from around the world competed in the most northernmost Ironman 70.3 World Championship ever.
Sadly the weekend also included the death of a competitor, who passed away during Saturday’s swim.
Ironman has compiled a list of some of the history-making events that took place this weekend:
- Taylor Knibb secured a world best Ironman 70.3 time (03:53:02), beating Laura Phillipp’s (DEU) previous time by one second, set at IRONMAN 70.3 Dubai in 2022.
- Knibb joins Daniela Ryf (CHE) as the only two back-to-back Ironman 70.3 World Champions, and is the only American female triathlete to win this event since Joanna Zeiger in 2008.
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- In the men’s professional field, Rico Bogen set an Ironman 70.3 World Championship best time of 3:32:22; a standard that hasn’t been broken since Michael Raelert’s 3:34:04 set in 2009. At just 22 years old, Bogen is also the youngest ever winner of an Ironman 70.3 World Championship
- Bogen is in good company in The Ironman 70.3 World Champion Hall of Fame, joining fellow Germans Michael Raelert, Sebastian Kienle and Jan Frodeno
- Germany has the most Ironman 70.3 World Championship titles, with Bogen’s win making it seven in total
- Frederic Funk and Jan Stratmann completed the male podium making it the first ever German podium in an Ironman 70.3 World Championship
- 11 pro men crushed the standing Ironman 70.3 World Championship bike best time which was set by Andrew Starykowicz (USA) in 2009 (1:58:49)
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- Former Finnish Prime Minister, and currently running for President, Alexander Stubb came 15th in the 55-59 category with an incredible finish time of 4:40:18
- Sam Holness (GBR), recognized by the Guinness Book of Records for the first known autistic athlete ever to complete the VinFast Ironman World Championship (Kailua-Kona 2022) continued to show that anything truly is possible with another epic performance which saw him finish in a time of 05:07:13, bettering his 2021 Ironman 70.3 World Championship time from St. George, Utah, USA by over 35 minutes
- At 18 years of age, both Linus Hilfiker and (CHE) and Lisa Shi (CHN) were the youngest competitors, finishing in times of 04:18:17 and 05:41:18 respectively
- For the first time ever athletes from Armenia, Bulgaria, Burundi, Ghana, Nepal, Moldova, Rwanda, and Zambia participated in The Ironman 70.3 World Championship
- Lahti is the most Northern destination to ever host an Ironman 70.3 World Championship, as well as being the third in Europe (Zell-Am-See, Austria, 2015; Nice, France, 2019)
