Ironman Barcelona 2025: Age Group Stats and Qualification Times
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EmailI’ve not been so consistent with these analyses the last few weeks, but Barcelona is a big race with a big field. Known as a fast course, it’s not a bad choice if you’re looking to set yourself a PB. It gets a slightly better allocation of 55 slots for Kona 2026 but it’s a competitive race for qualification.
Note, that while 2021 falls in the last 5 years, due to changes to its swim its results have been excluded.
Result Distributions
Comparing this year’s results with the last 5 years shows it trends slightly faster overall. Most of this change appears to be down to a faster run. Differences on the bike or swim are too small to hold much significance. So a clearly faster run, and overall a slightly faster race.
DNF Rates
DNF rate are average for the course. There were a couple of higher years in 2022/2023, but otherwise the levels compare with most previous races. Run DNFs stand out at the lowest levels seen.
Median Splits
The median split pattern matches the trends show in the distributions – that of a faster run average and slightly faster bike average.
Competitor Origins
European races always draw a wide range of athletes, mostly from around Europe. Barcelona is a little unusual for being dominated by British and French athletes, with Spanish in third. Although, the British don’t do quite as well in terms of qualifications.
Performance Changes
Finishing times in Barcelona have been quite stable with the exception of 2022/2023 which stand out as slower years. So, this year is largely inline with the course history.
Qualification
Applying the qualification adjustments to the results gives the above distributions of slots before roll downs. As has often been the case so far this season women’s age groups receive just a single slot each. The distribution among the men particularly favours 50-54 year olds with 35-39 coming in second.
Age Group Top 20
Tracking the top twenty in each age group we can see that someone’s age groups mostly trend around the average while men tended to be slightly ahead of the average. The success of an age group in gathering slots is likely reflected in how far they come ahead of the average and past results. This is certainly supported by M35-39 who outperform their averages by the largest margin. The difference is lower for M50-54 though.
Conclusion
While Barcelona 2025 looks a bit faster than the last 5 years of racing, this is likely due to 2022/2023 being slower, rather than this year being particularly fast. Ultimately, it was a normal year for the race.
