Ironman Frankfurt 2025: Age Group Stats and Qualification Times
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EmailIt was a big weekend of racing for Ironman in Europe with both Frankfurt and France on the same day. I’m going to start my analysis with Frankfurt, the larger of the two races. Known for fast times, conditions were hot this year and that can have a big impact on performance.
Result Distributions
Overall there isn’t too much difference between this year’s finisher distribution and that of the previous 5 races. It’s when we look at individual splits that we start to see how this race differs. Firstly, the swim was significantly slower this year, likely a consequence of being non-wetsuit. But bike times appear to have more than made up for that with a faster distribution compared to results from the last 5 races. The run trends a touch slower, so the overall is much like usual.
DNF Rates
DNF rates for this year’s race are over 10% although this isn’t exceptional high for Frankfurt. A stricter cut off time may be the reason a fast course has double figures for its DNF rate. Worth noting that our distribution figures include results from 2019 which saw a very high level of DNF.
Median Splits
Medians follow the trends shown by the distributions so we can find slower swim medians alongside faster bikes. The runs trend more closely to previous course times.
Competitor Origins
Frankfurt pulls in a wide range of, mostly European, athletes to race. The majority are German and they hold onto most of the qualification slots.
Performance Changes
Tracking the changes in finish time for different age group positions gives a picture of how this year compares with a long history of results from Frankfurt. Times appear to have been more volatile in the last 5 years, much more change between races. This year doesn’t really fall that far out of line though. Slower when compared to last year but not compared to the history of the course.
Qualification
Based on slot numbers at this race and the starting numbers I’ve calculated the slot allocations for Ironman Frankfurt and from that the automatic qualification times. You can play with the allocation at this race on it’s Qualification page.
Age Group Top 20
Finally, reviewing the top 20 performances in each age group, there’s quite a lot of variation. Larger age groups hold closer to course averages but some smaller age groups trend much faster. We can see 2024 stand out as a consistently fast year.
Conclusion
Overall the slower swim and faster bike times seem the most distinctive features for this year’s race. The overall results don’t fall that far from course averages for the most part. While hot weather tends to slow races and wetsuit bans slow a swim this is compensated for by the faster bike splits at this year’s race.
