Kristian Blummenfelt breaking the Ironman and Ironman Worlds records on debut; Marten van Riel and Laura Philipp smashing the 70.3 records in Dubai in March; Alistair Brownlee storming to 7:38:48 at Ironman Kalmar in August to break the British record… yes, when it comes to the longer forms of racing, we're in a golden age.
But what's causing this seismic shift in stamina and speed? Nefarious reasons? Whenever a record's broken in endurance sport, tongues will wag. But the last professional who tested positive was Ukrainian Daniil Sapunov back in 2020 for taking EPO. So what is it? Well, as they're at the heart of this evolution, who better to ask than the Norwegians, more precisely Kristian Blummenfelt's coach Olav Aleksander Bu.
“Not to be disrespectful but in the past, results among iron athletes did not define peak human performance,” Bu surmises. “You can say it was an extreme event in the sense that it was hard but not when it came to understanding
