Ironman Wales 2025: Age Group Stats and Qualification Times
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EmailIt was a big weekend for Ironman racing – 3 full Ironmans and 7 Ironman 70.3 races took place. I’ll start the Ironman reviews (there are far too many 70.3s to dig deep into their data) with a look at the results from Ironman Wales. with a few of my athletes racing there I know conditions were a bit wet and windy on the day. Ironman Wales carried 40 qualifying spots for the 2026 Ironman World Champs.
Result Distributions
Comparing the distribution of finishers with those from the previous 5 years suggests this year’s race was average for the course. Not good news for writing an analysis as it leaves little of interest to say. The split data would suggest that the swim trended slightly slower while the run trended slightly faster this year. The bike, like the overall times was average.
DNF Rates
It’s a similar situation with DNF numbers. After last year’s high numbers we’re back to a level comparable with most recent years at the event. DNF rates in Wales sit towards the higher range for Ironman.
Median Splits
Medians reflect the trends seen in the distributions. Meaning a slightly faster run and a slightly slower swim for this year’s race. There’s always some variation across age groups, but most stick with the trend.
Competitor Origins
The majority of athletes racing are from the UK, but about 10% come from the rest of the world. Slots are a little more broadly distributed with 60% likely to stay with UK athletes.
Performance Changes
For the largest Male age groups, those between 30 and 50, finishing times have been surprisingly stable in Wales. Conditions have quite an impact on this race, so we might expect more variability year-on-year. Smaller age groups deliver this – we can see far more variation in times for women’s age groups for example.
Qualification
I’ve applied the 2026 qualification adjustments to finishing times to determine how 2026 qualification slots will distribute. Numbers and times assume no roll-down of slots. You can review and adjust the slot allocation in more detail on my Ironman Wales qualification page. Women’s age group each receive 1 slot; the distribution of slots for men is quite evenly spread.
Age Group Top 20
This year’s top age group performers largely trend close to the course averages. There’s variation across age groups as to whether they’re just above, or below the average, but they don’t tend to stray far. This may help explain the largely even allocation of slots across age groups. With no age group’s relative performance standing out there isn’t a single group taking a bigger share of the slots.
Conclusion
This year’s race was an average year for Ironman Wales. That means much slower than the majority of Ironman courses, but nothing unusual for the Tenby course.
