When you’re the defending gold medalist, anything other than another gold is likely to be a bit of a disappointment. Finishing 12th definitely doesn’t cut it, even if you’ve managed to win a world championship, an Ironman World Championship, an Ironman 70.3 World Championship and dominate the long-distance scene between Olympiads.
Realistically, though, Kristian Blummenfelt’s chances of winning another gold medal here in Paris were tenuous, at best. And, after the race, a look at the numbers confirmed what he’d been dealing with over the last year and a half since he turned his focus back to draft-legal racing – Alex Yee and Hayden Wilde were running about 50 seconds faster than he was over 10 km.
So, when he came off the bike in a large group that included the two pre-race favourites, things didn’t bode well. In the end Blummenfelt would cross the line 54 seconds behind gold-medal winner, Yee. While Blummenfelt was hoping to bridge the gap to the two men he bested in Tokyo, closing that “50-second” deficit proved to be too much.
“They are pretty fast, so it wasn’t a surprise,” Blummenfelt told us after the race. “But I was hoping that I was able to bring back that gap and have better run legs.”
Blummenfelt was 50 seconds behind the leaders out of the water, but was able to work with Wilde and others in the chase pack to reel in the lead group that had included Yee. Then the Norwegian star found himself at the front of the group, with very few athletes willing to help push the pace. The 32-man pack cruised through the final part of the bike, resting their legs for the 10 km run that would determine the final standings.
“Obviously the dream was to win the world medal again, so 12th is not really what I was going for,” he said.
Next up for the Norwegian star? It’s now time to get back to long-distance racing and gear up for the Ironman World Championship in Kona in October. To get there, though, Blummenfelt will have to race at the Ironman European Championship in Frankfurt to validate his slot.
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For any other athletes (other than, maybe, Taylor Knibb), the thought of turning the training focus around from the Olympics to the Ironman World Championship so quickly would be a non-starter. It’s important to remember that after winning in Tokyo, Blummenfelt had planned on racing an Ironman just weeks afterwards, but was spared that effort when he was offered a wild card spot in Kona for winning Olympic gold. Later that fall he would blast through a 7:21:12 Ironman performance in Cozumel.
Will Kona be Blummenfelt’s last triathlon? Will we see him move to a brand new sport – cycling- as his coach has suggested? We didn’t get the opportunity to ask that question, but it sure seems like Blummenfelt isn’t worrying about that right now. First he’s got to shift focus to fly through an even shorter race on Monday as he leads the Norwegian team through the mixed relay. Then, 13 days after that race, he’ll be pushing himself through an Ironman.
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