IRONMAN World Championship 2021 MOVED to St. George, Utah, USA, 2022 will return to KONA

IRONMAN have announced after much speculation that the 2021 Ironman World Championships will go ahead as planned, but for the first time ever at a new location of St. George, Utah, USA, on May 7th 2022.

Speculation had been brewing over the past week as to whether the event would be moved and Ironman has released a statement confirming that the rumours are true. It stated the reason for the move was because “resources remain stretched, and we lack confidence that the Big Island will be ready for us by early next year.”

The 2021 race was originally meant to be held on October 9th at the traditional venue of Kona, Hawaii but this was postponed to February after COVID numbers and travel restrictions made it impossible for the event to go ahead.

The 2,500 age-group athletes who are registered for the Ironman St. George event have stuck lucky as they will all now, if they chose to do so, be part of the World Championships race.

In addition to this, IRONMAN will now also host a two-day IRONMAN World Championship in Hawaii in October 2022. This two-day event will see professional women race on Thursday, October 6, 2022 and professional men race on Saturday, October 8, 2022, and age groupers distributed between the two days.

Every athlete who is currently qualified for an Ironman World Championships—whether 2020, 2021, or 2022—will automatically be eligible to race at the two-day event in October 2022, unless they opt to race in the St. George event instead.

This two-day show may be how the event comes to look in the future races to come and this can no doubt be a positive thing for the sport, giving it all the more ‘air time’ and chance to see a separate men’s and women’s race days in more detail, rather than a flick between the two during one day.

Here’s to race day!