The Brutal Reality of Winning 70.3 Worlds and Kona in One Year

It’s an elusive double: winning the professional Ironman 70.3 World Championship, followed by the Ironman World Championship in Kona in the same year. The feat has only been achieved by four triathletes: Australia’s Craig “Crowie” Alexander (2011), Great Britian’s Leanda Cave (2012), German Jan Frodeno (2015) and Switzerland’s Daniela Ryf (2015, 2017, and 2018).

Admittedly, Kristian Blummenfelt has won both world championship titles in the same season, too. On the back of a pandemic-adjusted calendar in 2022, he triumphed twice in St. George: first, at the full distance championship in May, then at 70.3 Worlds in late October. But with respect to Utah’s Snow Canyon and all the challenges the location entails, the Norwegian himself has insinuated it didn’t have the same luster as backing up his 70.3 Worlds win on the Big Island of Hawaii.

With that caveat, the 70.3 Worlds/Ironman double is a feat that hasn’t been achieved in eight years. The last time was when Switzerland’s Ryf ran away from Brit Lucy Charles-Barclay at the 2018 70.3 Worlds in South Africa, and then cycled clear of the same rival six weeks later in Hawaii with a record bike split (4:26:07) that remains more than five minutes faster than any other woman has pedaled at the event.

Ryf’s dominance made such a difficult “double” look almost routine. From Zell am See, Austria, in 2015, Chattanooga in 2017 and Nelson Mandela Bay in 2018, Ryf was a hot favorite for a fourth double in 2019, winning 70.3 Worlds in Nice again before illness skewered her race in Hawaii. When a stomach bug left her drained, she eventually placed 13th in a time 48 minutes slower than the previous year.

Ryf’s story is evidence that preparation and application need to be near-perfect to pull off a 70.3 Worlds/Kona double. It’s also a reminder that a pro who looks unbeatable on Nice’s Promenade des Anglais this weekend could stumble along Ali’i Drive just weeks later.

The history of the 70.3 and Kona double

It’s fun to hypothesize how some of triathlon’s early pioneers, like Mark Allen or Natascha Badmann, could have pulled off the double-win feat, but the inaugural Ironman 70.3 World Championship didn’t take place until 2006. For its first five years, the race was hosted in Clearwater, Florida, in November, by which time the Kona winners would often be relaxing on a beach elsewhere (no Ironman World Champion in that period placed on the podium in the 70.3 Worlds that followed).

But in 2011, the 70.3 world championship race moved to Henderson, Nevada, and was scheduled in the month before Kona. An opportunity opened, and 38-year-old Alexander was the first to seize it.

“There’s no doubt the Ironman 70.3 World Championships in 2011 being scheduled in Las Vegas worked in my favor,” the now-53-year-old, who will be inducted into the Ironman Hall of Fame this fall, tells Triathlete. “I was excited. It was four weeks before Kona, it was an ambitious plan, but I definitely thought it was achievable by a versatile athlete who had planned out their season and training well.”

In 2007, Alexander attempted the double, but the scheduling was different. “I finished second in Kona and then fourth at 70.3 Worlds just three weeks later,” he says. “My plan that year hadn’t been to race in Clearwater – a flat, very fast course in cooler conditions – after my debut in Hawaii, but as defending 70.3 world champion, I thought I owed it to the sport.”

Even though 70.3 racing is fast and furious, the course in Vegas was very hilly for the bike and run, and conditions were best described as “extremely hot.” Crowie says this worked in his favor: “This made it a strength race as much as a flat-out drag race, so I felt I could definitely prepare well for both.”

Alexander was in his prime in 2011, drawing on the experience he’d gained through wins in 2008 and 2009 and a sobering fourth place in 2010 to win his third and final Ironman World Championship, breaking Luc Van Lierde’s 15-year-old course record in the process. Alexander remains the oldest winner of the title.

“In my heart, Kona took priority,” he says. “It always did, as watching the race on television in the late 1980s is what drew me to the sport. But my mental and physical preparation placed equal importance on both. To win both titles takes really good planning, execution, and some luck. It was an extremely difficult challenge, but I always believed it was possible for an athlete who had the right tools, and it’s definitely an illustrious little club to be a part of.”

Key factors for pulling off a 70.3/Ironman Worlds double win

You might also need experience. Cave and Frodeno were both 34 when they pulled off their double-win feat, with Ryf younger at 28 but long-established in the sport, representing Switzerland in junior competition as early as 2003. Cave, who matched Alexander’s Nevada-Hawaii double the following year, had also been on the 70.3 Worlds podium twice, and finished third in Kona in 2011. However, she feels it was the races that went badly that taught her the most.

“Those were the days when I could really sit back and reflect,” she tells Triathlete. “I was a bit of a loner, and I didn’t need a coach to tell me where I fell short. I could unpack my result in fine detail and say what I was doing well and what I was doing poorly.”

In 2012, Cave, who now runs a coaching business from her home in Aspen, Colorado, found that little went wrong. What was the key? “This is going to sound a little strange, but I had no other distractions,” she says. “I wasn’t in a relationship, I was living alone, and I was able to completely focus. Some athletes thrive on having a support mechanism, but I was very independent and self-sufficient.”

Though Cave was training in the triathlon hotspot of Boulder, Colorado, she says she wasn’t in the “Boulder Bubble” where she was surrounded by athletes: “I trained alone and felt I could execute my workouts with autonomy. If I needed a bit more sleep, I would go an hour later. Whereas when you’re training in that group environment, you’re expected to turn up.”

There’s no doubt that the Ironman 70.3 World Championship was a far smaller event in 2012 than it is today. Less than 1,800 triathletes competed in the one-day race, compared to the festival in Nice this year, where up to four times as many can be expected over two days of competition.

“It was quite funny because I’d never really considered winning it,” Cave says. “I drove out to the race, I was there alone, and I was just like: Let’s just get it done. I’m not saying I wasn’t trying to win; I just didn’t expect that from myself because I was only really thinking about Kona.”

Training in Tucson, Arizona, at the time, which Cave believes was even hotter than the area around Las Vegas, she thrived in the oppressive conditions. That benefit extended to Hawaii, too.

“[The heat] didn’t hit me whereas a lot of athletes start to fade,” she says. “That year in Kona was extremely hot too, and I think it’s probably why I did so well in both of those races. I was just very good in that climate. In Kona, when I passed Caroline Steffen in the closing miles of the marathon, I vividly remember her grabbing a whole bottle of water from the aid station and dumping it over her head. She was definitely in a place where the heat was causing her a lot of distress, and that was when I was like: I’m going to go for the kill. But at the same time, I was like: Damn, that’s a really good idea. I’m gonna do the same!”

Cave also feels that consistent training was central to holding off USA’s Kelly Williamson at 70.3 Worlds in Henderson, and then running down Steffen in Kona: “I was always riddled with little injuries in my career, but leading into 2012, I’d had a long string of training consistently, which was huge,” she says. “I tell my athletes today that 90% of their training is being able to execute week in, week out without interruptions. It’s the other 10% you get from nailing that high-intensity stuff that’s going to peak your fitness.”

The competitive mindset is also a prerequisite. “It was always about being on the podium and achieving great results,” Cave says. “Some people would be happy with a top 10, but I’m going for the win every time. I was always pushing that line where you can cross it, break down physically, and have a disaster of a race.”

In addition, Cave says she would try to secure her Hawaii qualification as early as possible to alleviate the pressure of having to finish a full-distance event in the build-up to championship season. “After racing in Kona, I would race another Ironman to qualify for the following year,” she says. “I just wanted to avoid cramming qualifying for Kona in the lead-up to the world championship, because I honestly felt, and still believe, the Ironman distance isn’t a healthy distance. It’s detrimental to your physical shape, and if you do too many, you break down physically and mentally. I was always very aware of that.”

The final element that Cave felt was needed for both events – and one that more triathletes recognize as the times for both distances have tumbled in recent years – is the need to retain speed. “I was training a lot more speed than a typical Ironman athlete,” she says. “I think that contributed to being able to perform at the 70.3 level, but I also feel that that plays into why I was able to achieve great results in Ironman.”

Cave, who was coached by Siri Lindley at the time, says believing in her coach’s training philosophy “played out in a way that helped me to achieve both results,” saying, “One of the big things was always having the speed component. It would often be a combination. A speed workout in the pool, and half an hour later I’m on the treadmill. The duration of training would be maybe 90 minutes, but I’ve just executed two very high-intensity workouts. I also think that when you’re training at speed, especially with running, you’re training with really good running form, and it helps ingrain it into your racing.”