Ironman announced in November that in order to providing professional women and men their own dedicated day of racing, the 2023 Ironman World Championship triathlon would be hosted in two locations.
Ironman had originally scheduled two race days in Kona — the championship’s home for 40 years — for its 2023 World Championship. But community outcry over the gridlock traffic and other problems that the first two-race event caused in 2022 for the small town on the Big Island led to the organizers changing to a two-location format.
The women’s race will be Oct. 14 in Kona and today Ironman announced that the men’s race will be Sept. 10 in Nice, France.
In 2024, the men will rotate to Kona racing, on Oct. 26, 2024, while the women will rotate to Nice and race on Sept. 22, 2024.
“The rotation will continue through 2026 with Nice and Kona acting as co-hosts for the pinnacle event in triathlon,” Ironman said in a press release.
“In 2022, we saw the power of a two-day Ironman World Championship, one with dedicated race days for professional women and professional men,” said Andrew Messick, President & Chief Executive Officer for The Ironman Group.
“We believe in this concept not only to showcase the depth of both the women’s and men’s fields but also to invest further into the growth of the sport of triathlon. Nice, France, as the European birthplace of long-course triathlon is the right place to showcase this evolution.”
Over the years Nice and the Cote d’Azur have staked a claim as a major sporting destination, hosting many sports events of a global scale. As the capital of the Alpes-Maritimes on the French Riviera in the southeast coast of France, Nice became a birthplace of long-distance triathlon in Europe in 1982 when it first hosted the Triathlon International de Nice.
This year, Nice will be host to four games of the 2023 Rugby World Cup and was also most recently named as the Final Stage for the Tour de France.
With Ironman’s latest move to ensure dedicated Ironman World Championship racing for both women’s and men’s fields, the qualifying cycle and slot allocations have been adjusted to compensate for the change in time of year for the men’s race.
Updated information can be found at www.ironman.com/im-world-championship-2023-slot. Additionally, all athletes who have previously qualified and registered for the 2023 VinFast Ironman World Championship will be contacted directly with additional information.
