Still a bit early - but here is my top3 prediction:
1. KB Blue - after his performance in IMDE, he seems superior IMO
2. Ditlev - some Danish patriotism - flying under the radar, he will run close to 2h35m, I think
3. Laidlow - assuming he will not reach his best performace on raceday
Re: Ditlev, I am torn with him. 18 months ago, I would have thought he and Kanute would be pretty pushing hard against Laidlow and KB. But now Iâm not so sure. Kanute seems to have floundered, but maybe heâs just really focusing on Kona and heâll surprise everyone. Same goes with Ditlev. He could be focused just enough on this race.
It really does feel like we have all the top names coming into Kona without having over cooked the season. Rudy von Berg hasnât been doing much this year, which leads me to think heâs either floundering or really going to surprised people in Kona. Sanders is potentially up for a huge race. Youâve got Gustav playing coy about his chances, but on his day if he shows up healthy it seems like he can get the better of KB at long course. Laidlow seems to be peaking just in time. Then thereâs Marquardt and Foley. Both of them might also show up and have a day. Foley, will obviously have to ride it out with Lionel and then run to the front.
But this race is shaping up to be even more exciting than the last time the men were in Kona!
My question is⌠will anyone over do it and get sick or hurt before race day. Who are we betting on to pull out? I wouldnât be surprised if Lionel overdoes something and doesnât want to have another humiliating day and pulls before race day. But I really hope thatâs not the case.
If ditlev runs a sub 2:40 in kona conditions ( like normal Hawaii and run course isnât short) it would be out of this worlds like , chicken and eggs diet x 10 .
He ran 2:48 in 2022 . Not sure when he took his penalty?
I rewatches the 2022 race menâs and womenâs , penalties were a huge part of that day.
Ironman predictions are near impossible as you never know what can happen .
I put them groups of 5 and some can move into the group if shit happens but itâs kind of lined up
Group 1
Kristen
Gustav
Laidlow
Magnus
Matt Burton ( under the radar good)
Group 2
Lange
Rvb
Leon
Lange
Mignot
Group 3
Manure
Backeguard
Marquardt
Robert wilkoâŚ.
Hanson
Group 4
Foley
Liefmann
Barnaby
Weiss ( if hilly bike)
Mcnamee
If everyone has their ideal day that is the order kind of guys can move up but other have to have an un ideal day.
Side note this is my prediction of how it plays out.
Kallin destroys the bike ( like old starky style bike crazy) no regard for the run .
That leads to pulling Sam, blu, Gustav , Burton and Magnus ( if he gets to the from before kallin) . If not he has to ride to match solo.
Your top 4 come out of that group. Everyone else will race Magnus for 5 th or Lange will bounce into the top 5 in place of kallin if Magnus makes the group.
All the old guys that used to swim 4-5 min back are now racing for a top 10 on a perfect day only. 5 min out of the swim is what 10 minutes was 5 years ago. Too much front power in the train, why laidlow knows he likely has to run to win now and if focused on the run . He understands they will not let him go and he will have a bigger pack to put ride which makes them fresher to run and him less .
Part of the answer to how the day will play out is that Laidlow has a card that the other favourites donât: if he drills the swim, then Lange, Blu, Iden, and Ditlev donât make the front pack. He knows this (based on how he raced Nice and what heâs discussed since 2022) and has enough allies (Marquardtâs the likely candidate) that heâll start the bike with 1 min in hand over the rest of the favourites.
No need then to wonder if theyâll let him get away - heâs already there.
After that, the question becomes whether Ditlev will tow everyone else on the bike up to Laidlow. Maybe, but he generally takes a while to warm up anyway before he drills it, so the catch (if it happens) is going to be in the back half of the race. He wonât want to take Blu or Iden with him, so will probably just sit in until maybe Hawi and then drill it hard enough that they have to choose to follow.
After that, the wildcard is Kallin, who has more to gain just yoloâing it to the front and seeing what happens. Maybe also Wurf who needs to reclaim the strongest cyclist title again
Lange and Sanders are probably the two guys who will just do their own thing. Lange because he can melt everyone in the run and Sanders because he doesnât want to walk the run. Langeâs strategy may net him a podium, Sandersâ a top 5.
I know Sam says he has to take the swim out but I am not sure he gets a min on those guys. One if he gap them by 10 m guys like kanute , Appleton will lead the pack at nearly the same speed. So his one minute would leave him tired and the other the same either way .
Same big bikes could still pull the group to laidlow so Ian not sure he risks taking it out like nice as nice was basically draft free watts the first 60 km here they save a lot more in the pack so his nice watts that gained him minutes save him seconds vs the pack , especially if kallin and hogenhaug come through they will have more power then laidlow . I donât think magus will over bike he is there to run while with the pack and challenge there.
Thatâs why I think laidlow is focused on the run he is expected a big group with a non runner leading the pack and the runners sitting in to run well and he has to be ready for that race not the way 2022 played out.
I am not sure that Laidlaw truly drilling the swim to gain a minute is a totally free wildcard. 60 seconds is almost 2 seconds per 100m (actually that would be 76 seconds, but letâs roll with this). 2 min faster per 100m against yourself is a really substantially more difficult swim, but if he just drafts with everyone he probably uses 15-20 percent LESS energy to just go 60 seconds seconds slower than a solo swim trying to drop everyone. He can do a few surges at the front just to make sure the slightly weaker âfast swimmersâ are burning a ton of energy just to stay in the lead group.
He may just be better off drilling the bike after Waikoloa before Kawaihai and long before Hawi to blow things apart. By then the people who over swam in the lead group can be dropped (example, Jan Frodeno putting down the hammer in 2019 and Lange feeling the over swim and dropping out (combined with being sick, but thatâs roughly what happened).
But you could be right and he drills the swim. If I was him, 120km of riding is âenoughâ distance to come to T2 5 min up on people who can outrun him
Iâm mostly basing the drill the swim idea on a comment he made coming out of 2022 where he was asked if he knew where to find the 2 mins he needed to beat the Norwegians. His answer was the swim. (IIRC this was on one of the Breakfast with Bobs)
Fast forward to Nice 2023 and we see Laidlow (and then Frodeno) drilling the swim, so that he can gap Lange and Ditlev by a minute.
Easy to see how it plays out this time, except with maybe Marquardt or Kanute as one of the other top swimmers. Easy for Laidlow to just say âdrill the swim with me and I wonât expect a bike pull if you can keep upâ
Though he might give up 30s putting on socks, so who knows
Not sure we are talking about the same person 
Magnus Ditlev ran 2:34 in Roth this year, which is still one of the fastest Ironman marathons (and Ironman record) in history
Don´t challenge my patriotism 
Very different courses and environment. This is like comparing Samlaidlows bike time kona to nice , sure heâs 25 min faster in kona but lost. Every else was over 25 min slower in kona then nice and lost.
I like Magnus though he is in the front pack of has a chance for 1 st.
Kona run course is hard and tougher then people think and different then the old mark and Dave Scott days when people say they used to run just as good .
Yes I know why he said that but he tried to gap in nice and just pulled the front group . You know you can draft more on the swim than the bike itâs just not as long a pet of the race.
If they start TT style he could if just goes to the front he pulls everyone to just a fast split .
He isnât Lucy vs the female pack here. Itâs not like that at all.
Obviously not comparing run courses (Kona vs Roth), but my point was that Magnus has improved his run by a LOT since 2022. His stride is stronger, better posture, run dynamics and does not seem to âfall apartâ in the later stages of the marathon, as we´d see it more earlier.
Running 2:38-2:39 or so off a very strong bike can be enough for Magnus to give Laidlow or KB Blu a run for their money. IMO they are all 3 very close, and dynamics of the day (and dark horses) will be a big factor.
He is very good those times are a bit too fast for him I think but you never know . To win he needs to be off the bike at least 4 min ahead of blu Gustav and off the bike ahead of laidlow .
But you never know thatâs why they do the race.
Side note he has to be ahead of Matt Burton too which I am not sure he will be ahead of him off the bike .
What Burton did his last Ironman hasnât gotten much attention Ironman cairns was a pretty good field and he held a comfortable lead the holy run , no pressure to push it and has focused solo it seems on this race . No t100 focus no other fillers.
Burton had a great performance in Cains, especially taking into account that he almost lost a foot a couple of months before. Yet, the field was not great, it is a local race which does not favour Europeans or N. Americans. He had a poor result at the Worlds in Townsville. He is a great biker but not better than Ditlev or Laidlow who will be ahead at T1. If he comes nearer to the big front it will only be with the help of other average swimmers who will join him on the bike and did not make front pack : Wurf, Mignon, Guilloux and later on the bike they may be caught by a bunch of weaker swimmers with great bike power : Svenningson, Sanders, Chevalier, Horseau, Foley.
Yet once again, as good as they may be they are not faster than Laidlow or Ditlev who will also benefit from being at the front (motosâŚ)
Actually it feels like the front pack swimmers get to make up from the shorter relative time of the swim by getting this âprotectionâ. Whenever i hear Joe Skipper complaining about this i want to tell him 'Start training with a serious swim group rather than doing random sessions with middle age groups ! Ditlev has shown that hard work in the water may pay off.
Weâll see at the start line and through the race.
I expect a number will have over-raced with new league format pressuring more racing than normal. Maybe some will have responded well to it, but I suspect the podium will come to those who minimised other LD races and maximised Kona prep.
Ditlev has raced Roth and three T100s.
Lange has raced two IMs and Roth (this is far more than he has in the past)
Blummenfelt has raced Frankfurt (to validate)
Iden has raced some 70.3s
Laidlow has finished IM Vitoria speedily (to pseudo-validate) and âracedâ his last two T100s
Lopez has won Vitoria and Townsville (3/4 distance)
Von Berg has raced Roth and some T100s
Youâre basically saying you think Lange will not podium: the rest have all met your criterion (âminimised LD racesâ).
Iâm with @Lurker4 here: (bar Lange) none are âovercookedâ.
I see noone likely to finish top 10 who has âover-racedâ because of T100 or IM Pro Series âpressureâ. (Irrational) Roth pressure maybe.
Look back at the women: a mixed message there:
Philipp and Matthews had raced more than normal.
Sodaro, PierrĂŠ, Bartlett less (various aspects of unfitness rather than an unforced choice).
Sanchez: crazy race schedule this year (11+)
But he doesnât need to gap the other strong swimmers: Kanute, Marquardt, etc. - he just needs to gap the other strong favourites, who as it happens, often fall into the category of âsometimes make the front groupâ - particularly if there isnât someone who decides they want to push the pace.
He also doesnât need to do it 100% himself. Just offer to let someone like Marquardt take the swim title for his sponsors if he pulls the back half, and Laidlow can tow him for a bit on the bike.
In Nice, youâre right that he pulled the strong swimmers around, but he also put just over a minute into Lange and Ditlev - and these are the guys who count.
Lange only swam in Roth.
Thatâs a pretty solid bike split and all those guys he took 10 minutes from and then out ran comfortably are in kona .
The whole list of contenders and the prize money is up on the front page, for those who care.
Our analysis of the field will come next week.
https://www.slowtwitch.com/triathlon/2024-mens-im-world-championship-the-full-field-of-contenders/
