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The first thing to understand about triathlon is that it’s split (and nearly always has been) into two organizations which both have purported world championships - World Triathlon (formerly known as the International Triathlon Union (ITU)) and Ironman Corporation.* The second thing to know is that there’s a world championship for various distances of triathlon and a world champion male and female for each five year age category (e.g. male 40-44). There are also world championships for other so-called “multisport” events such as duathlon, aquathlon, cross triathlon etc. etc. which I’m not going to go into for the purposes of this blog because I’m a triathlon purist and I don’t care.
Another scope thing, I’m going to focus this blog on U.S. residents because each country has a different qualification criteria for World Triathlon events. This is because for World Triathlon events you get selected for your country (e.g. Team USA) and wear a compulsory national uniform like at the Olympics. For Ironman, you compete at the World Championships as an individual and you can wear whatever you want. For Ironman World Championships there’s no limit on the amount of athletes qualifying from one country or another.
The third peculiarity of amateur triathlon world championships is that the difficulty (standard of athlete) qualifying for any of them can vary wildly year to year and event to event depending on what country you’re representing, where the world championships are that year, and what the qualifying event(s) are for it. So I’ve attempted to estimate a degree of difficulty in qualifying for one event or another. Hold tight, it gets complicated.
IRONMAN World Championships
October 26, Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, 2024 (Men)
September 22, Nice, France, 2024 (Women)
In a seismic shift in recent years the Ironman World Championships, instead of always being held in Hawaii with men and women combined, is now split and alternates each year between Nice, France and Hawaii. Despite them both being equal in status so far the clamor to qualify for the Hawaii year, as opposed to the France race, still feels stronger among age groupers.
How to qualify? [Degree of Difficulty = 8.5]
It has gotten “easier” to qualify for this event just because there is increased capacity now the men and womens fields are split and in different locations. But it’s still pretty hard and you still have to do a full Ironman to qualify. The longstanding CoachCox website has a comprehensive breakdown of the qualification races and the times required to qualify.
You can qualify by securing a slot at another Ironman. You can also qualify by another means called legacy. Details here but basically you have to do 12 Ironmans over a period of years. I have my opinions about this being a way to qualify for a championship event but I’m not going to air them here.
IRONMAN 70.3 World Championships
December 14-15, Taupo, New Zealand, 2024.
November 8-9, Marbella, Spain, 2025
Qualifying [Degree of Difficulty = 8.5]
You basically have the opportunity to qualify at any 70.3 Ironman event which are held nearly every weekend all around the world. There are a small amount of slots allocated to each event usually requiring you to finish in the top 1 or 2 in your age group to qualify. But, it depends. In some circumstances the slots roll down significantly because to accept a slot you A) have to physically be at the award ceremony held several hours after the event B) have not already accepted a slot from a previous event C) be ready with your credit card to pay the entry fee to Worlds on the spot. Honestly I think the best tactic for trying to qualify for Ironman 70.3 worlds (other than getting faster) is to enter lots of events and hope for a lucky roll down situation. Qualification for the 2024 70.3 World Championships in New Zealand is closed. The 2025 IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship, Marbella includes all IRONMAN 70.3 events occurring up to and including June 29, 2025.
World Triathlon Long Distance Triathlon Championships
Sunday 29 June, Pontevedra, Spain, 2025
This race takes place within the relatively new concept of the Multisport World Championships a 7-day event which I’m not a huge fan of because, as mentioned, I’m a triathlon person and there’s a lot of not triathlon events. This long distance race will be about a 3000m swim / 120km bike / 30km run. Details will start to appear on this page of the World Triathlon website.
Qualifying [Degree of Difficulty = 1.0]
The qualifying race is in Daytona, Florida, Sunday 8 December, 2024. It's a 1.1mi swim / 56 mi bike / 13.1mi run. The top 18 per age group rolling down to 30th place. USAT 2024 triathlon rankings will be used to fill remaining slots. Presumably that means that if they can’t find 18 people to go from the qualifying race they will just run down the list of rankings and email them to see if they want to go. Looking at last year’s result and given the time of year (who’s thinking about triathlon in December?) all you likely need to do is cross that finish line and you can punch your ticket to Pontevedra. This event gets little qualification won’t be challenging. Check out 2023 results here.
World Triathlon Sprint and Olympic Distance World Championships
October 15-19, Wollongong, Australia 2025.
Date TBA, Pontevedra, Spain 2026.
Qualification for 2025 Worlds is now closed. The Age Group World Championship Sprint is draft-legal and the Olympic is not. There is no longer a non-drafting Sprint Distance Championships.
How to qualify? - Sprint [Degree of Difficulty = 5.0]
Non-Drafting Sprint, August 10 2025 Milwaukee, WI. Top 8 per AG rolling down to 20th place. The event is part of the National Championships and you have to qualify for this event but it’s not hard with some strategic race selection as I go into detail about here.
Draft-Legal Sprint, June 7, 2025, Omaha, NE. Top 10 per AG. There’s no qualification to participate for this event and it will likely be poorly attended compared to the option above.
How to qualify? - Olympic [Degree of Difficulty = 7.5]
The only qualification is at Olympic, August 10 2025 Milwaukee, WI. Again you have to qualify for it (easy) but it is typically well attended and more competitive than the Sprint or the Multisport Nationals. They take the Top 18 per AG rolling down to 30th place. From previous years results you can get a pretty good idea whether you have a realistic chance of qualifying for Worlds in your age group.
*Interestingly the last sentence on the World Triathlon About page states “It continues to be the only organisation that can award the titles of World Triathlon Champions.” Threatened much? But you’ll notice that Ironman doesn’t use the word “triathlon” and “world championship” together. It’s always 70.3 World Championships or Ironman World Championships. Semantics.
Have more questions on preparing for a tilt at Worlds? Book a one-on-one consultation with Coach Martin. Or join our triathlon team that boasts many world championship qualifiers and their coaches.
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