IRONMAN has announced that Marbella, Spain has secured the rights to host the 2025 VinFast IRONMAN® 70.3® World Championship triathlon. Marbella will follow Lahti, Finland who hosted last year’s event, and Taupō, New Zealand who will host the 2024 edition. Marbella will become the fourth city in Europe and the first in Spain to host the IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship (Zell am See-Kaprun, Austria in 2015; Nice, France in 2019; Lahti, Finland in 2023). The 2025 VinFast IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship race will continue with a two-day format that was first adopted in 2017, with the professional women and age-group women racing on Saturday, November 8 and the professional men and age-group men racing on Sunday, November 9, with over 6,000 athletes anticipated to hit the start line across the two days.
Marbella has been hosting IRONMAN 70.3 events since 2018, and last year it played host to the 2023 IRONMAN 70.3 European TriClub Championship.
Located on southern Spain’s Costa del Sol, Marbella is flanked by the ocean and the mountains, and is often deemed one of the most beautiful and glamorous locations in Spain. This Andalusian city is a spectacular host for athletes and supporters, thanks to its ideal climate and Mediterranean seafront promenade views. The annual average temperature is around 18.5º C/65.3º F, with 320 days of sunshine a year providing for a perfect tourist and sporting destination. The city is 35 miles from the international airport of Malaga, making it easy to welcome athletes from all over the world. For more information on Marbella, visit here.
The VinFast IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship triathlon is the culmination of over 120 global IRONMAN 70.3 qualifying events which see approximately 200,000 registered athletes every year competing for the coveted age-group slots. After a successful edition of the 2023 VinFast IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship in Lahti, Finland, the event now shifts to Taupō, New Zealand on December 14-15, 2024.
The IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship debuted in Clearwater, Florida in 2006 and since that time, has toured incredible destinations around the world with stops in Henderson, Nevada (2011-13); Mont-Tremblant, Quebec, Canada (2014); Zell am See-Kaprun, SalzburgerLand, Austria (2015); Queensland, Australia (2016); Chattanooga, Tennessee (2017); Nelson Mandela Bay, South Africa (2018); Nice, France (2019); St. George, Utah (2021-2022); and Lahti, Finland (2023).