I thought I remember seeing somewhere a table outlining Nice/Kona slots for 2025 races. I’m looking to race Ironman California to qualify for Kona 2026 and the registration website shows IMCA 2025 as a 2026 70.3 Worlds qualifier. Pretty sure that’s incorrect, but would like to confirm before registering. I’ve reached out to Ironman, but figured I’d see if anyone here is in the know as well.
October 2025 full IM race will 100% be for a qualification to 2026 full IM worlds.
The only ambiguity is whether the 2026 full IM worlds happen as planned right now (men in Kona, women in Nice). There’s been an unspecified rumour that IM might change the Kona & Nice setup already from 2026 onwards.
Interesting
Can you share more on this?
Ironman’s response to me asking was “ Thank you for reaching out. The 2025 IRONMAN California event will be a qualifying event for the 2026 IRONMAN World Championship in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii`.”
The webpage says: “This event has age group qualifying slots to the 2026 VinFast IRONMAN World Championship.”
And this is the reply you ought to have received, without a specified venue. As an aside I heard that maybe the Vinfast tag/partnership is time-limited (link from 3 days ago):
https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/loss-making-ev-firm-vinfast-get-34-bln-more-funding-founder-parent-company-2024-11-12/