The Norwegian Viking Blummenfelt Wins Ironman World Championship in St George
The Norwegian Viking is at it again! Kristian Blummenfelt wins Ironman World Championship in St George, Utah.
Each corner of our athletic planet is stocked with unique sporting events, there is little that hasn’t been achieved. Nonetheless, human beings are capable of incredible things, and there is always someone who makes the impossible become reality.
Not satisfied with being the first male triathlete to win an Olympic Gold Medal and WTCS world title in the same year, Kristian Blummenfelt decides to add to his collection of phenomenal achievement by taking the crown of long-distance triathlon winning the Ironman World Championship. Unbelievable!
This race needed something special with many of the big names missing like Jan Frodeno, Patrick Lange and the late withdrawal Alistair Brownlee. There was also concern that Blummenfelt may not race given the sick bug within the Norwegian camp that saw his compatriot Gustav Iden withdraw on Friday too sick to race.
At the start of the race, it was anyone’s guess who would be crowned Ironman Champion. However, Blummenfelt was Norway’s equivalent of Thor the thunder god unrelentingly pursing his foes with a mountain-crushing thunderous hammer laying waste to all before him as he crossed the finishing line in a time of 7:49:16 with a 2:38:01 marathon to take the crown.
Blummenfelt hangs tough in every race he enters and he needed to in this race as it was not all plain sailing, the Norwegian had to earn his stripes.
Some two minutes back exiting the swim he powered down on the bike only to find himself in no-man’s land on the bike stuck behind the group of five athletes in front. Out of T2 he found himself over four minutes behind the leading group. It looked for a while that Blummenfelt did not have his running legs but he was in fact pacing himself whilst a few of the leaders appeared to have gone out too hard as Blummenflet started to haul them back in.
With 9 miles to go the Norwegian hooked onto the shoulder of the leader Kiwi Braden Currie and eased past him to take the lead. From that point on he built a sufficient enough gap that nobody was going to catch as he strove toward the finishing tape.
Behind him Currie was being chased down by Canadian Lionel Sanders and with the finish line almost in sight the Candian overtook Currie to take second place with the Kiwi having to settle for third spot.
Scotland’s David McNamee attempted to ran through the field for a podium spot as he did in 2017 and 2018 but on this occasion had to settle for 8th place whereas Germanys Sebastian Kienle in his world championship swansong had to settle for 14th place.
In an historic performance, Blummenfelt will now be forever a legend. What the Norwegian has achieved is nothing short of fascinating, and who knows what’s next. No matter what anybody says, athletes like Blummenfelt prove that humans certainly have more power and purpose than we could ever hope to wrap our minds around. In a nutshell: nothing is impossible.
Full results can be found here:
