The IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship Taupo by the Numbers

Triathlon Forum
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Originally published at: The IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship Taupo by the Numbers - Slowtwitch News

Photo: IRONMAN

I am finally here in Taupo for the 2025 IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship in Taupo, New Zealand. (It’s been a bit of a journey – Canada to Western Australia to Canada to Daytona Beach, Florida to Taupo – but I made it and this place is hopping, so I am really glad I will be here to cover the racing.) We’ll have lots more coverage for you over the next few days, but I figured I would get things started with some interesting facts for the weekend’s racing:

Registered athletes: 6,200 – 2,400 women and 3,800 men have registered for the races on Saturday and Sunday.

Number of countries: 119

Percentage of Athletes by region: Europe – 31%; North America – 29%; Oceania – 18%; Latin America – 12%; Asia – 6%; Africa – 2%; Asia – 1%

Most represented countries: USA – 1,586; Australia – 765; France – 421; New Zealand – 401; UK – 390; Canada 372

Number of Olympic medalists: 3. Silver medalists Hayden Wilde (NZL) and Julie Derron (SUI) along with bronze medalist Leo Bergere (FRA)

Average age: 43

Oldest athletes: Americans Robert Heins, 83, and Cherie Gruenfeld, 80, are the oldest athletes in each field

Youngest athletes: Both Zane Moore (USA) and Annika Rantanen (FIN) are both 18

Deferred from 2020: Taupo was originally slated to host the 70.3 Worlds in 2020. Over 1,000 athletes have waited since then for their chance to race in New Zealand

States: 47 US states are represented. California leads the way with 269 competitors, Colorado has 119, Texas 114, Florida 100 and Washington 64

Returning age-group champions: Six world champions from last year’s race in Lahti, Finland will be racing in Taupo: Great Britain’s Kerry McGrawley (F45-49) and Chris Standidge (M40-44), Americans Beni Gras-Thompson (F50-54) and Tim Bradley (M60-64), Estonia’s Timmo Jeret (M30-34) and Australia’s Mark Clough (M55-59)

History of the IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship

The first 70.3 World Championship took place in Clearwater, Florida in 1986. The event stayed there for five years, then moved to Henderson, Nevada (with the swim taking place in Lake Las Vegas) in 2011. After a three year run there, the world championship began a global rotation beginning with the 2014 race in Mont-Tremblant, Quebec.

The 2015 race in Zell am See, Austria was the first IRONMAN world championship race to take place in Europe. From there the event moved to the Sunshine Coast in Australia, followed by Chattanooga, Tennessee in 2017. The 2017 race was the first where women and men competed on separate days.

The 2018 race took place in Nelson Mandela Bay, South Africa and the 2019 race was held in Nice, France. The first post-COVID 70.3 World Championship was held in St. George, Utah in 2021, and returned there again in 2022. Last year’s race was held in Lahti, Finland.

Stay tuned for more of our race coverage – we’ll be at tomorrow’s press conference here in Taupo, New Zealand.

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First race was 2006.

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Give or take 20 years :grinning:

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I fixed it in the article, forgot to do it in the forum post. :hear_no_evil:

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I was one of those who originally qualified in 2019 for the 2020 WC in NZ, and I’m curious how they would have kept deferring, given the options presented.

From memory, I had the option to defer to 2021 St. George (which I did), then had the option to pick between 2022 St. George and 2023 Lahti once it was clear that the Canadian border wasn’t going to open in 2021. I ended up picking Lahti (and did so last year)

Or are these people who would have said no to the initial St. George option?

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There is at least a 4th Olympic medalist with Taylor Knibb (except if you only count individual medals)

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We had the option to pick between Lahti or New Zealand… I chose NZ and my husband chose Lahti… neither of us have ended up racing either as we haven’t raced any triathlons since 2022 and I even sold our triathlon bikes last year (and built a home gym with the proceeds).