Men’s Ironman World Champs 2025 – Nice race analysis
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EmailPart one of the Ironman World Championships took place on Sunday. There’s plenty of talk about the Pro race, but I’ll be focussing on age group stats and seeing how this year’s race compares. We haven’t had many men’s Championships in Nice so for context I’m comparing the results from this year’s event with those from previous years in Kona and also Ironman France.
Except where noted the stats only consider male age groups at any race I’ve included. Be aware that the regular Ironman Nice course has a shorter bike, for the Championship extra distance was added to make the full 180km. So, when comparing times between this race and Ironman France they are not exactly like for like. On the other hand in September the temperatures on the course won’t hit the same peaks in June.
Result Distributions
Starting as always with the results distributions we can make comparisons with both previous men’s Kona results and previous men’s results at Ironman Nice. The championship Nice race is a faster event than the regular Ironman France despite having the longer course. A clear indication of the impact of selection over general entry. While there have been questions aroudn uptake and roll downs for Nice in the past, it’s clearly a more competitive field.
The Nice course is slower than the Kona course as a result of the bike which is significantly slower. Nice actually looks to have a slightly faster run – a simple flat course and lower heat and humidity likely being factors in that. We have similar championship skews to these distributions although the slower bike tries its best to hide them.
DNF Rates
For clarity the DNF rate data does include results from women either in their specific races or in the earlier years when the race was a one day event. The Nice Championship look to have higher DNF rates overall. Although if we look back at some of the earlier Kona results, the rates are higher.
For comparison Ironman France DNF rates are clearly higher than at the Championship. The main factor is likely to be the level of preparedness of a qualified field over a general entry. Lower heat levels may play a role too though.
Median Splits
Median split reflect patterns highlighted in the distributions. So the slowest race is Ironman France and the fastest is the World championships in Kona. Our championship in Nice sits between them with only its run edging ahead of Kona.
Competitor Origins
Taking a brief look at the countries athletes come from the most notable difference between this year’s race in Nice and the previous year’s men’s race in Kona is a lower proportion of athletes from the US. I’ve not dived in deep enough to snider the exact number of qualification opportunities in different regions, but it looks like uptake in the US was reduced when the championship was in Nice.
Age Group Top 20
As a final comparison I’ve looked at the times for the top 20 in each age group and plotted them against times for men in Kona and at Ironman Nice to help give us context. Unsurprisingly the conclusion is the same as with the initial distributions. When compared to Kona the Nice championship is significantly slower. Then when we compare with Ironman France the times are faster. Again, we should remember this is despite a longer bike course for the Championship.
Conclusion
As an Ironman Championship Nice was a slower course overall, although this is fully down to its bike. While it may not have held quite the same appeal as Kona it clearly drew a competitive field as shown by the skew in race distributions and how many athletes outperformed Nice despite the longer course.
