Mainova IRONMAN Frankfurt European Championship | A Fighting Chance Presented by HOKA

This weekend, we’re headed to Frankfurt, Germany for one of the best professional men’s field yet – World Championship aside.

In this episode of A Fighting Chance Presented by HOKA, we go behind the scenes at the Mainona IRONMAN Frankfurt with some contenders preparing to battle it out in one of most stacked field yet.

Go behind the scenes with Kristian Blummenfelt, Gustav Iden, Paul Schuster, Magnus Ditlev, Casper Stornes, Patrick Lange & more as they aim to shake up the standings.

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[Music] heat hey heat hey heat [Music] the world champs outside of the world champs yeah so uh yeah it is the European championship though and uh as you know like the strongest uh triathletes in the world comes from Europe so it makes sense that it’s a tough one hello
hey don’t film my sweaty armpits please don’t film it okay nutrition for a weekend oh
that’s a lot of water gels how many gels do you have
i don’t know that’s actually nutr nutrition for two so a lot of sugar easy to swim easy to run or maybe a little bit of some strides on the run
last year was a runaway race for you
yeah yeah but you know last year I just came here to validate so I think I will have the same mindset this time around like I’m I’m just here to finish to validate my slot and then we will see where I’m ending up
is that tactical mindset
yeah yeah i’m just here to validate been back home in Bergen since XM and uh training has been good it’s uh obviously way easier to do the har specific sessions in the weather in Bergen compared to what we did like going into Texas so the pace on the run has been good and the power has been good so I just hope that uh that can translate into a good race here we’ll head back home to Bergen this race and then we’ll do a fiveweek block in the French mountains before heading down to the French coastline and preparing for N thank you
i can do my socks even higher yeah I think that’s a good idea
what’s up baby team Norway against team Denmark against team Germany this this weekend by the looks of it
yeah of course we have to make sure that it’s uh we would rather see three Norwegians on the podium than three Germans or three Danish people so u uh we might have to talk a bit to the German team in order to work against Danish now
in the hands of the How was the water
collecting the last 10 m on land 3k uh no it’s nice it’s not too warm
not too warm
hopefully it’s uh better with like 24° than 21.9 because then
it’s a bit warm with a wet suit so last
how long are you going to run for
like uh uh 45 minutes we have to leave from here in 65 minutes so need to put in enough time to get a shower as well byebye it’s Mr schwin mr schwin is uh traveling with us all around the world hey guys
come in
thank you very much
and find out
yeah short session on the turbo followed by a short run just some activation nothing crazy or last year it was it was a pretty rough a pretty rough year race yeah um hopefully this year is uh one of the good ones it’s my home race uh 30k race so everyone who wants can come and uh see me or the other guys racing and um hopefully a lot of friends my old family will be there and it’s always special to to race here
well you’ve had a good start to the pro series this year with Eagleman and uh Texas
texas finished six um with a pretty fast time the field was also pretty strong
so how how are you approaching this race now it’s like a it’s the world champs outside the world champs the same with with the strength of the field
yeah it is it’s it’s crazy but uh for Frankfurt it’s absolutely fantastic um for the spectators for us athletes it’s great to race the best of the best so uh yeah can’t wait for for Sunday
good luck on Sunday and we’ll see you around
yeah thank you very much [Music] you’ve got a compatriate in Christian Hogen who talking tactics
yeah we have actually we can’t uh tell all the all the stuff we’ve been talking about of course that would be pretty cool to do some damage together yeah start of the season went very good uh nice race South Africa and went to St george thought I was going to smash the Americans and uh double flooded on the bike so yeah obviously that didn’t happen and Lionel was also extremely strong so yeah either way it would have been uh tough it’s good sometimes to get uh that things are not going on a straight line perfect all the times for me at least I get some motivation and feel that I’m extra focused after something like that i went on an altitude camp afterwards and I’ve been in Fond in France it’s always tough when you are in the camp yeah like you can’t do what you can do at sea level obviously so you have to trust the process and then when you get down and you see the numbers then you get the confidence back again slowly comfortable that
the heat it’s starting to get love
he’s only taking this break to get the car the temperature down
it’s uh strategic it’s going to be hot how do you like the heat
i think it’s actually okay for me maybe I’m not the natural heat performer but I think I can compensate a bit of of that by being smart about the racing I do there is no magic sauce to swimming yeah it’s a process and I’m really enjoying it and I’m seeing small steps i’m hoping to find myself in the first big group of people if there is like three or four people up the road then it’s it’s no problem
going to be quite special the Danes versus the Norwegians versus the Germans
yeah we have Daniel also so three Danes I believe it’s just a very big field with so many great athletes the plan is to do well here i might have to then go do 70.3 Swansea if I want to perform really well in the Pro Series but I will assess that after Frankfurt either way I’m all in on NE and that’s my biggest goal of the season the short trip to Swansea is can be squeezed in yeah yeah i can only imagine how great the feeling must be to finish this race uh on on top of the podium [Applause] hey man
hey man hello
how are you
yeah good good good to be back uh fifth time racing here in Frankfurt so uh yeah excited as always and um no I think it’s going to be a great day it’s a special place for me indeed um I grew up actually in the northern part of Hessen which is the state we’re currently in so it’s 150 kilometers up north and um it’s just cool to to see so many familiar faces and friends coming out to this race and cheer me on and um it’s definitely definitely home turf i had a really really bad swim uh year last year um but we analyzed what what happened and I think I I know what to do better this year and um if you look at the swim in in uh Kona uh was out of the water in force play so it’s not that I’m not capable of it and I think I proved it many times that I’m like a pretty pretty solid allround uh triathlete and not just a runner um and so yeah I just want to keep this uh this this positive momentum from from Kona especially the good swim there and uh so I know I can do it i know I can be close to the front on the bike as well and uh for the runner I have no doubt
i suppose the the ultimate question is what’s it going to take Patrick Langanger to snag a European championship title here in Frankfurt this weekend as always we have to be thinking close to course record uh times and um if you look at the time that Christian posted here last year uh it’s insanely fast also taking into consideration the the the conditions so um yeah we we will see times sub 7:30 here um to take to take the win which is uh yeah just smoking fast [Music]