The Capital City of Estonia, Tallinn, today hosted the IRONMAN® 70.3® European Championship, and the 14th stop of the IRONMAN Pro Series™.
In his IRONMAN 70.3 triathlon debut, 20-year-old Panagiotis Bitados of Greece claimed the IRONMAN 70.3 European Champion title, and clinched the course best and run course best time in the process.
Bitados commented: “I pushed everything on myself, and that’s the point for me – to enjoy, to finish safe and to push everything of my body [sic]…I am happy today.” When asked what his plan was for the rest of the season, Bitados said “Training and then training.”
In the women’s field, Caroline Pohle also had the race of her career, going wire to wire, finishing in a final time of 03:59:40, marking her second ever IRONMAN 70.3 triathlon win.
An emotional Pohle said at the finish line: “I am absolutely speechless, and at the moment I think it’s just a dream. I worked so hard the last month, and yeah, today, it’s paid off… I played my cards at the swim and at the bike. I tried to push hard from the beginning and I hoped for a good run as I’ve worked really hard on my run performance last month and it worked.”
As well as the title of IRONMAN 70.3 European Champion, athletes were competing for a total prize purse of $75,000 with Bitados and Pohle taking home $12,000 each, and a maximum of 2,500 IRONMAN Pro Series points.
Top Five Male Professional Results:
Top Five Female Professional Results?:
News and Notes???
- At just 20 years old, Bitados is the youngest winner of the IRONMAN Pro Series so far. This race also marked his first ever professional IRONMAN 70.3 triathlon.
- With a final finish time of 3:36:09, Bitados also broke reigning champion, Pieter Heemeryck’s’ (BEL) course best of 03:36:56 (2023). Second place finisher, Leonard Arnold (DEU) also broke Heermeryck’s course best by eight seconds.
- The bike course bests, evenmeasured 91.4km, slightly longer than normal, to accommodate a swim location change to Stroomi Beach.
- With a 1:09:19 half marathon, Bitados also broke the standing run course record of 1:11:45 by over two minutes, set by Bastian Peitersen (DNK) last year.
- Female winner, Caroline Pohle, went wire to wire having the fastest swim and bike splits of the day, finishing in a time of 3:59:50, missing Laura Philipp’s (DEU) course best of 03:59:24 by just 26 seconds.
- Robert Kallin (SWE) had another blistering bike split (1:57:20), breaking Sebastien Kienle’s (DEU) bike course best from 2020 by 10 seconds. In the women’s field, Pohle also had the fastest bike split of the day in 2:11:50, just two minutes shy of fellow German Laura Philipp’s standing course record of 02:09:54.
- Hannes Butters (DEU) and Caroline Pohle were first out of the swim with times of 21:07 and 25:10 respectively.
- Maja Stage Nielsen’s (DNK) ninth place finish moves her up to third place (from fourth) in the IRONMAN Pro Series standings.
- Kat Matthews’ second place finish bumped her up three places in the IRONMAN Pro Series standings, where she now sits in fourth place.
IRONMAN Pro Series Standings??
The IRONMAN Pro Series™ is a year-long performance-based triathlon race series with professional triathletes being able to earn points at 20 select races in 19 locations globally. Open to approximately 1,000 eligible professional triathletes worldwide, the IRONMAN Pro Series ushers in a new era of IRONMAN racing where Every Second Matters™ with every second behind the race winner equating to a point earned or lost. For any athlete, only their top five event results count towards their overall Pro Series points and standing, of which a maximum of three IRONMAN results can be counted. How it works can be found here.??
Overall IRONMAN Pro Series Standings – Top Five Male (After 14 Events)??
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Total IRONMAN Pro Series Points (Max Top 5 events)???
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Total Eligible Races Scored???
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Eligible IRONMAN Races Scored???
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Eligible IRONMAN 70.3 Races Scored???
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Overall IRONMAN Pro Series Standings – Top Five Female (After 14 Events)??
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Total IRONMAN Pro Series Points (Max Top 5 events)???
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Total Eligible Races Scored???
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Eligible IRONMAN Races Scored???
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Eligible IRONMAN 70.3 Races Scored???
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Overall IRONMAN Pro Series Event Prize Money??
In addition to the IRONMAN Pro Series’ $1.7M year-end bonus prize pool, there is an event pro prize purse payout of $2,575,000, distributed across IRONMAN Pro Series events. To date the IRONMAN Pro Series has paid out a total of $1.12M. Over $1.45M remains to be claimed at the remaining events.????
Top Five Male Prize Money Earned (After 14 events)??
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IRONMAN 70.3 European Championship Tallinn Prize Money
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Kristian Blummenfelt (NOR)?
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Tomas Rodriguez Hernandez (MEX)?
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Top Five Female Prize Money Earned (After 14 events)??
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IRONMAN 70.3 European Championship Tallinn Prize Money
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Next Events Coming Up??
The IRONMAN Pro Series remains in Europe for the next stop with IRONMAN 70.3 Zell-am-See taking place the following Sunday 1st September, the last stop before VinFast IRONMAN World Championship®races in Nice (women) and Kailua-Kona (men).