Sam Long, Magnus Ditlev and Alanis Siffert head to Ironman Florida chasing early Kona 2027 places
Four weeks after Kona, Panama City Beach offers three professional places per gender for the 2027 world championship on 9 October 2027. Ditlev returns to the course where he set the bike record in 2023.
Ironman Florida on 7 November gives professionals one of the first chances to qualify for the 2027 Ironman World Championship, and the provisional start list includes three athletes who were in contention in Kona four weeks earlier: Sam Long, Magnus Ditlev and Rudy von Berg.
The race in Panama City Beach offers three Kona places per gender, according to both TriRating and Triatlón Noticias. TriRating lists a total prize purse of $100,000, paid ten deep. The 2027 world championship is on 9 October 2027 in Kailua-Kona.
The lists are provisional. Inclusion does not guarantee a start, and Triatlón Noticias noted that last-minute changes are possible.
The men: three of Kona’s front-runners
Long, of the United States, wears bib number 1. He finished sixth in Kona on 10 October in 7:55:21, with splits of 54:47 for the swim, 4:12:50 for the bike and 2:42:57 for the marathon, according to the PTO’s results database. Triathlon Magazine reported that he has been working with the coach Parker Spencer on his bike and run.
Denmark’s Ditlev, bib 5, led the world championship for much of the day. He was first off the bike after a 4:06:47 ride and held a lead of 4 minutes 30 seconds at halfway on the marathon, Big Island Now reported, before he slowed and walked. The PTO’s results list him as a non-finisher. Florida suits him: he holds the bike-course record of 3:59:02, set in 2023, according to TriRating.
Von Berg, bib 6, won the most recent edition in TriRating’s records, on 4 November 2023, in a course record of 7:34:41. He also did not finish in Kona.
The other top seeds are Australia’s Cameron Wurf, Matt Hanson and Ben Kanute, both of the United States. Wurf has already qualified for Kona 2027, having taken a place at Ironman Maryland, according to TriRating’s tracker of 2027 slots.
TriRating’s model, which predicts times from past results, makes Long and Ditlev joint favourites with a 30 per cent chance each, with von Berg on 28 per cent.
The women: Siffert, Perterer and Sodaro
Switzerland’s Alanis Siffert, third at the Ironman 70.3 World Championship in Nice in September, is the top-rated woman in TriRating’s seedings. Austria’s Lisa Perterer, who wears bib 1, finished sixth in Kona in 8:52:54, according to the PTO’s results, and is the model’s favourite, with a 42 per cent chance of winning against Siffert’s 26 per cent.
Chelsea Sodaro of the United States, the 2022 world champion, is also listed. TriRating’s tracker shows her holding a champion’s place for Kona 2027. Champions from 2022 and 2023 must validate those places by racing a professional Ironman other than Kona, the site says.
Britain’s Holly Lawrence, Denmark’s Katrine Græsbøll Christensen, Germany’s Laura Jansen and Britain’s Lydia Dant are also on the provisional list.
What comes next
Florida is one of two full-distance professional races in November. Ironman Cozumel follows on 22 November and Ironman Western Australia on 6 December, according to the PTO’s race calendar. On the same day as Florida, Kristian Blummenfelt and Gustav Iden are due to race Challenge Xiamen in China, Triatlón Noticias reported.
Unbroken Review will report the results.
