Norwegian athletes Casper Stornes, Kristian Blummenfelt, and Gustav Iden pull off an unprecedented podium sweep at the men’s Ironman World Championship in the south of France.
Nice was one of the only cities in France that was spared from the Viking raids of the 9th century AD, mainly because it was deemed to have no strategic value. The terrain surrounding the city is so menacing that conquering the jewel of the French Riviera wouldn’t have provided access to the parts of France they truly desired, like Paris.
Flash-forward 1200 years, and Nice is of very strategic value to the modern day Vikings of triathlon, who conquered it in a manner that would make their forefathers very proud. The training triumvirate of Kristian Blummenfelt, Gustav Iden, and Casper Stornes surprised everyone but themselves by claiming all three spots on the podium, led by Stornes and his fantastical 2:29:25 marathon along the Promenade des Anglais. It’s the kind of run that was once thought impossible at the Ironman distance, but all three athletes had been executing their version of the Norwegian method to perfection this summer, with the goal of running at exactly that pace.
After a dominant win at the Ironman European Championships in Frankfurt in July, Blummenfelt entered the World Championship as the odds-on favorite, thanks in large part to his 2:30 marathon split. Competing in only his second full Ironman in Frankfurt, Stornes finished third with a 2:35 run. Still returning to form after an injury, Iden was fourth in Germany with a 2:38 run. If anyone was going to break the seemingly-unbreakable 2:30 barrier in Nice, KB was the pick.
The Swim
From the gun on race morning, “the other Norwegian,” Stornes, was the most assertive and made it clear that it was ready to join Blummenfelt and Iden among the ranks of world champions. (Each already has three.) He was the only of the three Norwegians able to keep pace with the frantic lead pack on the non-wetsuit swim in the Cote d’Azur, with Blummenfelt losing a minute and Iden giving up two.
The Bike
From there, the Viking attack became more coordinated, and it was clear that they’d hatched a plan on how they wanted to dictate the race. Defending race-winner Sam Laidlow, competing in his home country, did his typical surge to the front on the bike, and the goal for the Norge was simply to keep him within striking distance. In past races, his lead has ballooned to more than seven minutes, but he only came into the second transition only 40 seconds ahead of the Norwegian trio.
The Run
Joined by Belgian Marty Van Riel, making his Ironman World Championship debut, five men began running away with the race at the start of the marathon, and three of them were from the same country.
Ticking off kilometers at 3:35 proved too much for Van Riel and Laidlow by the halfway mark, who both faded as Norway’s trio continued their march toward the sweep that was now within reach. Blummenfelt—ever the alpha of the group—was the first to attempt a surge, and perhaps paid for it. His moment at the front was brief, and it ultimately rewarded Stornes with the lead as his two mentors began to share the struggles that often come late in the marathon. First it was Iden’s stomach rejecting his nutrition, forcing him to slow, then it was Blummenfelt’s hamstrings turning on him as he tried to tug them back to normalcy.
There were absolutely no late-race concerns for Stornes, who crossed the line to drop the title of “the other Norwegian” and become “another Norwegian world champion,” instead. Iden regathered himself to finish two and half minutes later, with a 2:32:15 putting the cherry on top of a long comeback to the top ranks of the sport. Blummenfelt’s cramps nearly spoiled the dream of three Norwegian flags flying, as he nearly fell over in the finishing chute with both legs seizing with every step. He still finished five and a half minutes ahead of fourth-place Van Riel, making it something even bigger than a podium sweep. They’d done that once before, at a fast and furious World Triathlon race in Bermuda in 2018. But this was sheer dominance from one nation in a way that most global sports never see. It wasn’t just one, two and three. It was all three in a league of their own.
Always a Norwegian on the Podium
“We had a goal before the season that in every race where we were turning up, at least one of us should be on the podium, and that they would, in a way, represent the group,” Blummenfelt said. “So to finish off in the biggest race of the year and take all three slots, I couldn’t have asked for more—other than changing the order.”
A Focus on Ironman
All three men had a laser-like focus on this race and the full Ironman distance for 2025, which is something of a departure from years past, when all three were attacking multiple distances and race series at once. One of the core tenants of the Norwegian method is that everything has a cost, and that’s especially true when the races are 140.6 miles long. This was a season of reduced racing, increased volume, and truly focused altitude camps gearing up for this one, single race. So, this season was a bit different, but those are still all minor changes to the long-term program that was put in place years ago.
Training in Norway
Perhaps the reason it all worked to perfection was the truly major change that they made this year: They spent most of it in Norway. While they’ve each largely taken control over their own training programs, at home they have teams of coaches, advisors and sports scientists to help guide that program as perfectly as possible. It’s no longer just the two (or three) of them alongside Olav Aleksander Bu at a remote camp in the Pyrenees. It takes a village to pull off something like this, and it helps if that village is in Norway.
As I wrote in The Norwegian Method, the secret for Norway’s original endurance superstar, Ingrid Kristiansen, was spending as much time at home as possible:
“I just wanted a normal and good life, like most people in Norway have. The secret was just being in Norway. I don’t think I could’ve done it better doing it anywhere else.”
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