The 2025 IRONMAN Pro Series has six IRONMAN and eight 70.3s as well as the IMWC (Nice and Kona) and 70.3WC (Marbella) races.
Seven new race venues added to the calendar: 70.3 Geelong, IMSA, 70.3 Venice-Jesolo 70.3 Aix-en-Provence, 70.3 Swansea, 70.3 Eagleman.
Video announcement (with races listed first slide):
Same scoring as in 2024: athletes’ top five race performances of the year will count (max three IM) and athletes earn points based on the max score for that race and their finish times behind the winner.
#1 earns maximum points – 5,000 points for an IRONMAN and 2,500 points for a 70.3, with the two WC on 6,000/3,000. Every second behind the race winner = a point lost.
The end-of-year bonus prize pool distribution has been ‘improved’ for 2025. The top 10 get the same as in 2024, sharing $1.3M with #1 getting $200,000. Athletes finishing 11th to 50th in the standings has been adjusted/graded, for example: #11-#15 = $8,000, #41-#50 = $3,000 (is/was a flat $5,000 for #11-#50 in 2024).
As much as I love Eagleman as a race, it feels like a bad choice to host a pro series race. Fairly static course, but more importantly, not enough lodging.
Does the race having a pro field actually affect turnout? I can’t imagine many AG’s will sign up just because it’s a pro series race. And there’s like 150 pros max.
No I wouldn’t think so, but even 150 pros is more than standard (when they even have a pro field). People are always frustrated by lack of housing options there though. It can barely host the standard field as is.
I guess they wanted to include a 70.3 in North America (date preferred June) besides Oceanside (Apr) and St George (May). This year the Series included Chat, Boulder and MT (which did mean the schedule was too NA heavy imho).
Next year Boulder is MPro only and Happy Valley is the complementary WPro only.
It may’ve come down to not choosing Boulder because it is the same w/e as IM Cairns.
Is there a pattern (not in the Series apart from Hamburg/Frankfurt and Nice/Kona ) of having more ‘split’ Pro fields? IRONMAN can get the benefit of a Pro field without the downside of as much of a delay in the AG start for half the price/ze purse (I have no insight to answer @mathematics 's Q).
I think the split pro fields make a lot of sense for Ironman. In spite of what a lot of folks here like to argue, having a pro field does make the race more important, more desirable, and pumps up the age group fields. So splitting the fields gives them a twofer for the same cost as a combined race would.
It also puts the focus on each genders pro race, which seems to be more and more a thing these days…
Blummenfelt would be certain to be offered a T100 ‘hot shot’ contract, and (imho) Iden would too (see how they chose the 2024 hot shots).
It would be reasonably straightforward to race the T100 Tour and still be fully prepared for the IMWC in September (both only have to validate as as they are AQ from previous wins).
I guess that IRONMAN are paying them (‘up front’ Roth style) to race the IM Pro Series. Let’s hope there’s some transparency over this. Will they be paying Lange and messrs Barnaby, Marquardt and Hoegenhaug next year? I suppose they don’t have to as none of that 4 has the T100 option.
And what about Philipp and Matthews? They both raced T100 to their potential and came #1 and #2 in the IMWC. I expected them to race T100 next year but maybe a ‘down payment’ by IRONMAN would sway their choice for 2025?
“And what about Philipp and Matthews? They both raced T100 to their potential and came #1 and #2 in the IMWC. I expected them to race T100 next year but maybe a ‘down payment’ by IRONMAN would sway their choice for 2025?”
From the T100 2025 thread we see that Ditlev, Philipp and Matthews have not signed T100 contracts. That doesn’t mean they will race IM Pro Series 2025, but one has to think it likely. Maybe Ditlev wants the space to win both Roth and IMWC.
Bartlett raced well at both Nice and Taupo, and earlier won at Les Sables (so three IM Pro Series races). I see her as a challenger for next year.
Sanchez will also go well and challenge Wilms and Hering. Visser (who raced SIXTEEN times this year) was way below potential this year because of that DNF in Nice: in the mix next year.
Ditlev has said he’s going for the IM Pro Series (but silent over Roth).
Laidlow has said he isn’t going for either the Series nor taking a Txxx contract and has shared his racing calendar:
However if he races all those well he will make top 6. His max score is 19000 points and Barnaby was only just over that in 2024.
2025 season:
|30th March | Ironman South Africa| |5th April | Challenge Sir Bani Yas| |4th May | 70.3 Venice| |18th May | 70.3 Aix| |15th September | Ironman Worlds Nice| |9th November | 70.3 Worlds Marbella| https://www.instagram.com/p/DE0TYG1NnuV/
That schedule looks very interesting. I suspect Laidlow is going to crush this season again unless he really damaged his health from the Kona effort. His bike showed he has world class fitness, just maybe not the best strategy to send it – although we all understand why he felt it was his shot to go for it when he had Ditlev, Blu and Lange back there to worry about.
It looks like he’ll do one big international trip (to RSA and UAE on the way back) and then stay relatively local, within a driving distance. It might save him a lot of vital energy.
Either the Challenge race is paying a huge appearance fee or he must really dislike the Atlantic flight. If he just swaps out that race with something like Texas, he could have every race count towards the pro series. Otherwise Frankfurt.
He wouldn’t need to win them all - the obvious point on his schedule is to focus on Nice, but for someone of his calibre, relatively decent results would be enough to net him Top 5.
One question I have is why is Hamburg F Pro and Frankfurt M Pro? With the men racing Nice, it would make more sense to have the earlier race assigned to the men, and then swap next year.
Texas is very close to IMSA. A month apart, not ideal especially so early in the season
Winning IMWC pays you more than any of the series would, and it’s the gift that keeps on giving, as you will always be able to demand premium for the foreseeable future
Yes, but if you’re going to do 3 IMs and 2 70.3s in a year, you might as well check all the boxes, if you can. Obviously, you’re still targeting the big race in Sept as your main event. Patrick Lange was still 2nd in the Pro Series, after all. His effort won’t get him 2nd again, but it might be worth 3-4th next year, which isn’t nothing.
I’m not saying that he (and probably guys like Lionel or Lange) should explicitly target the pro-series - if you get a mechanical, a bad day, or maybe a DQ from drafting call that you don’t serve, you just let it go. But if you’re going to do the exact number of races that the Pro Series requires, you might as well just skip the Challenge race, and replace it with another Pro Series race.
Obviously, this is all else equal. Roth, and probably Challenge Sir Bani Yas, are likely paying out hefty appearance fees. Sponsors have a say, etc. - so maybe the 50-80k for 3rd-5th is already being covered.
) of having more ‘split’ Pro fields? IRONMAN can get the benefit of a Pro field without the downside of as much of a delay in the AG start for half the price/ze purse (I have no insight to answer 
|30th March | Ironman South Africa|
|5th April | Challenge Sir Bani Yas|
|4th May | 70.3 Venice|
|18th May | 70.3 Aix|
|9th November | 70.3 Worlds Marbella|