IRONMAN has announced a deep and talented field of more than 130 female and male professional triathletes will line up in Marbella, Spain next month to contest for the 2025 Precision Fuel & Hydration IRONMAN® 70.3® World Championship title. The women will race on Saturday 8 November and the men a day later on Sunday 9 November, with a total professional prize purse of $500,000 USD up for grabs.
Live race day coverage of the women’s 2025 Precision Fuel & Hydration IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship triathlon will be broadcast for free across multiple platforms for global viewers, including proseries.ironman.com, DAZN, YouTube, Outside TV (exclusive to viewers in the U.S. and Canada), RTVE Play in Spain and many more across the world.
The Precision Fuel & Hydration IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship triathlon is also the culmination of the 2025 IRONMAN® Pro Series and the last chance for professional athletes to score points towards their final standings, with a maximum of 3,000 points on offer to the winners in Marbella. At the conclusion of both professional races in Marbella, the 2025 IRONMAN Pro Series Champions will be crowned, with the female and male winners earning a spectacular bonus payout of $200,000 USD each. A total bonus prize pool of $1.7million USD will be shared among those finishing in the IRONMAN Pro Series top 50 in each gender.
Reigning champion Taylor Knibb (USA) will line up in Marbella aiming to become the first athlete to win four IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship titles on the bounce. She will face competition from the 2021 IRONMAN 70.3 World Champion and 2023 IRONMAN World Champion Lucy Charles-Barclay (GBR). Two weeks ago, both athletes would have been firm favourites for the title, and while their recent DNFs at the 2025 IRONMAN World Championship® race in Kona due to heat stress may raise questions about their current condition, it also means they arrive in Marbella with renewed hunger and a fresh opportunity to showcase their championship pedigree.
Kat Matthews (GBR) finished runner-up to Knibb at both the 2023 and 2024 IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship triathlons and enters this race in excellent form after finishing second at the IRONMAN World Championship triathlon in Kona earlier this month. As well as securing her first World Championship title, Matthews will be hoping to wrap up the year-long 2025 IRONMAN Pro Series, claiming the top spot in what would be back-to-back victories.
Sitting 827 points behind her in the Series is the 2025 IRONMAN World Champion Solveig Løvseth (NOR). The duo are guaranteed the top two spots in the IRONMAN Pro Series and will battle it out in Marbella for the title – though Matthews is firmly in the driving seat, needing a score higher than 2,600 points to guarantee her the title, while Løvseth needs to finish within 100 seconds of the winner in Marbella – and hope Matthews doesn’t improve her current score – to stand a chance of clinching the series.
Fellow IRONMAN World Champion Laura Philipp (DEU) also joins the star-studded start list in Marbella. Philipp has previously podiumed at the IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship (2017) and has twice won the IRONMAN 70.3 Marbella triathlons (2019, 2018). Other challengers set to line up in Marbella include 2024 IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship top 10 finishers Paula Findlay (CAN) – who was runner-up in 2022 – Ellie Salthouse (AUS), Caroline Pohle (DEU), and Grace Thek (AUS). Meanwhile, British Olympic gold medallists Georgia Taylor-Brown and Jess Learmonth will make their IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship triathlon debuts in Marbella.
With the Precision Fuel & Hydration IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship triathlon serving as the last opportunity to score points in the 2025 IRONMAN Pro Series, the top five and eight out of the top 10 women in the series standings will line up in Marbella. Lisa Perterer (AUT), third in the standings, sits more than 1,500 points ahead of Jackie Hering (USA) in fourth, with Laura Jansen (DEU) in fifth. Regan Hollioake (AUS), Marta Sanchez (ESP) – the lone Spanish professional athlete racing in Marbella – and Danielle Lewis (USA) complete the top 10 in the IRONMAN Pro Series hoping to improve their points score at the Precision Fuel & Hydration IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship triathlon.
Defending champion Jelle Geens (BEL) will line up for his second IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship triathlon hoping to secure back-to-back titles. The Belgian will be joined by fellow IRONMAN 70.3 World Champions Rico Bogen (DEU), Kristian Blummenfelt (NOR), and Gustav Iden (NOR).
Recent IRONMAN World Champion Casper Stornes (NOR) will join his compatriots on the start line in Marbella and will make his IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship debut after a crash just days before last year’s race ruled him out. The Norwegians have had a year to remember, sweeping the IRONMAN World Championship podium in Nice, France, and they currently occupy the top three positions in the IRONMAN Pro Series with all five scores registered – meaning they can only swap out their lowest IRONMAN 70.3 score if they achieve improved points in Marbella. Blummenfelt currently sits atop the standings, just less than 1,000 points clear of Stornes, with Iden just less than 1,000 behind again in third. Blummenfelt and Stornes are the only two men that can win the 2025 IRONMAN Pro Series title.
Also hoping to score valuable IRONMAN Pro Series points and improve on their position in the year-end standings are Kristian Høgenhaug (DNK), Nick Thompson (AUS), and Rudy Von Berg (USA) – sitting, sixth, eight, and 10th respectively. With the two athletes above him in the standings not racing in Marbella, Høgenhaug has a very real chance to leapfrog into fourth – needing just 209 points to do so – and possibly as high as second if he scores 2,723 or more and Iden and Stornes don’t improve their scores. Similarly, Thompson and Von Berg could finish third if they individually score big in Marbella and their rivals falter.
Several athletes on the Marbella start list are no strangers to the podium at the IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship triathlon. Sam Long (USA) in 2021 and Ben Kanute (USA) in 2022 and 2017 have both finished runner-up, while Von Berg in 2019, Magnus Ditlev (DNK) in 2022, and Daniel Bækkegård (DNK) in 2021 have finished third. The American and Danish athletes will be hoping that 2025 is the year they return to the podium – and maybe even snatch the crown.
Meanwhile, a cohort of short-course athletes will be hoping to make their mark on the middle distance at their debut IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship triathlon, including Panagiotis Bitados (GRC), winner of the 2025 IRONMAN 70.3 Venice-Jesolo triathlon; Vincent Luis (FRA), a three-time Olympian and 2024 IRONMAN 70.3 Bahrain Champion; and 2024 Olympians Jonas Schomburg (DEU), Jamie Riddle (ZAF), Sam Dickinson (GBR), Jake Birtwhistle (AUS), Seth Rider (USA), Alessio Crociani (ITA), and Miguel Hidalgo (BRA), among others.
For the full start lists, click HERE
