This is a preview feature written ahead of IRONMAN Frankfurt 2022. You can read our post-race report on the victories of Denis Chevrot and Daniela Bleymehl to see how the race panned out.
The primary financial district of Germany returns to triathlon central this weekend at IRONMAN Frankfurt. We’ve actually got two Pro races this year, though only the men’s side of things gets the ‘European Championship’ status.
You can also watch it all live, as the race makes it’s way from the Langener Waldsee swim to finish outside of the historic Römer.
Start time and how to watch live
IRONMAN Frankfurt takes place on Sunday 26 June 2022.
The race will start at 0625 local time (CET) for the Pro Men, with Pro Women starting five minutes later. That corresponds to 0525 in the UK and 0025 Eastern.
The race will be broadcast live, and you can watch every second by clicking the embed below:
As always, the ever reliable IRONMAN Tracker is the perfect data addition to support your viewing.
Pro Men
With the men’s race having European Championship status, we’ll start with them first on this one.
Wearing #1 is defending champion, Patrik Nilsson (SWE). As brilliant as that sub-eight hours win was, Frankfurt 2021 aside, the last three years have been pretty barren results wise for the BMC Pro Triathlon Team athlete. That is reflected in a PTO World Ranking currently of #221, which is clearly not reflective of his talents when he gets things right.
Five IRONMAN DNF’s over a 12-month period – including the World Championship in St George – will be something he wants to put well and truly to bed. With six IRONMAN wins on his C.V. already, he has all the tools to perform again. Having finished 1st, 2nd and 3rd in Frankfurt, no better venue for him.
Finishing less than a minute behind Nilsson last year was his BMC Pro Triathlon team mate, Kristian Hogenhaug (DEN). The World Triathlon LD champion started 2022 in style when winning Challenge Salou, but was another to DNF in St George.
Continuing the Scandinavian theme, Rasmus Svenningsson (SWE) makes his season debut after a long time recovering from a fractured collarbone after a bike meets van incident while training in Fuerteventura in February. Rasmus secured three full distance podiums in 2021, including victory at IRONMAN Lake Placid, so we wish him all the best on his racing return.
You can typically rely on Josh Amberger (AUS) to set the pace in water, and that will give a target to Great Britain’s Andrew Horsfall-Turner to try and stay with him through the first discipline. That said, with Lukasz Wojt (GER) also racing, ‘fastest swimmer’ status may already have been taken. Bottom line – the swim will be very, very fast at the front.
The likes of Bradley Weiss (RSA), Denis Chevrot (FRA), Clement Mignon (FRA), Boris Stein (GER) and Ruben Zepuntke (GER) will be among several other names believing they are in podium contention this coming Sunday.
Pro Women
No European Championship status for the Pro Women’s race, and with several athletes having raced elsewhere recently, the field looks as though it will be a relatively small one.
With an IRONMAN victory already this year in South Africa, Daniela Bleymehl will seek home soil success at a race she finished third at back in 2016. A winner at Challenge Roth in 2018, adding Frankfurt to her CV will see her join some of the German legends to have one both of those classic events.
Also in the blue ERDINGER Alkoholfrei colours will be Nikki Bartlett (GBR). A winner recently at IRONMAN 70.3 Marbella, the 2019 IRONMAN Lanzarote champion can be a true contender for the win here, especially if she recaptures the kind of form which saw her finish ninth at the IRONMAN 70.3 World Champs last year.
You can click here for the full start list.
Prize Money: What’s on the line?
There’s a total of $125,000 on offer in Frankfurt this weekend – and a rare instance in which that isn’t split equally between the Pro Men and Po Women. However, there is good reason in this instance.
The Pro Men will be racing for a prize purse of $75,000 – paid ten-deep, and with a first prize of $25,000. That prize reflects the status – for the Pro Men only – of this race being their European Regional Championship event. The women have already had their championship – and the same prize fund – recently at IRONMAN Hamburg.
Unlike Hamburg, IRONMAN Frankfurt also hosts a Pro Women’s race, and that is still offering a not insignificant $50,000, which still means a ten-deep allocation, with a first prize of $15,000. The women’s race in Frankfurt then is effectively the ‘contra’ to next weekend’s IRONMAN Austria in Klagenfurt, which will be a Pro Men only race with that same $50,000 prize fund.
Along similar lines the Pro Men will be racing for three Kona qualifying slots, with just one on offer for the women in Frankfurt, for the IRONMAN World Championship in Hawaii, 6-8 October 2022.
The total funds will be paid ten-deep, as follows:
| POSITION | PRO MEN | PRO WOMEN |
| 1 | $25,000 | $15,000 |
| 2 | $15,000 | $9,000 |
| 3 | $9,000 | $7,000 |
| 4 | $7,500 | $5,000 |
| 5 | $5,500 | $4,000 |
| 6 | $4,000 | $3,000 |
| 7 | $3,000 | $2,500 |
| 8 | $2,500 | $2,000 |
| 9 | $2,000 | $1,500 |
| 10 | $1,500 | $1,000 |
Of course, thanks to the formation of the Professional Triathletes Organisation, financial rewards from performance are not solely from on-the-day performances.
The PTO World Rankings will see a total of $2million awarded at the end of 2022, based up on the final standings in those points tables. The rewards there can be substantial, with a move up or down the rankings system potentially earning you more than any individual event.
