Kristian Blummenfelt

It is perhaps his ability to span the distances while competing on all fronts almost simultaneously that most impresses about the 29-year-old from Bergen in Norway who lives and breathes the sport. This, of course, includes Super League too and he has embraced triathlon’s most frenetic format from the get-go – winning a double-header Triple Mix and Eliminator weekend in Jersey in 2018.

As part of an inseparable duo with training partner Gustav Iden, and under the close watch of innovative coach Olav Aleksander Bu, Blummenfelt is renowned for his scientific and volume-heavy training regime, dubbed the ‘Norwegian method’ by triathletes keen to match the Nordic’s exacting standards and levels of performance. A high VO2 max and large lung capacity have no doubt given Blummenfelt the ideal physiology for endurance sport, but it’s the will to win mindset that has provided the extra edge.

While the championship titles may have rolled in quickly, this is no overnight success story. As a child, Blummenfelt shunned the traditional winter sports of his hometown of Bergen, Norway, favouring swimming and running. 

As a junior, he was a real talent in both the water and on dry land and competed in the 2011 Junior European Cross Country Championships. Shortly after this, he added biking to the mix and was soon winning ITU junior triathlon events in Brno, Tabor, and Antalya.

He announced himself on the elite stage with a bronze medal at the 2015 European Championships and his distinctive stature and all-effort style have marked him out as a fan favourite ever since.

In 2017, a year after his Olympic debut in Rio where he finished 13th, Blummenfelt’s focus was still entirely on short course racing, and he started to claim podiums on the World Series scene. 

However, despite a string of medals and being part of a Norwegian 1-2-3 along with Casper Stornes and Iden in Bermuda in 2018, it took until 2019 for him to take an elusive World Series win. That came at the World Triathlon Grand Final in Lausanne and following the pandemic was backed up by a second WTS success in Yokohama and then a World Cup win in LIsbon heading into the Tokyo Olympics.

The form held through to Japan where he produced a stunning performance to win the men’s triathlon ahead of Alex Yee and Hayden Wilde to complete the gold medal mission that had been planned more than a decade earlier. Not resting on his laurels, he headed to Edmonton to win the World Triathlon Championship Finals and become the first male triathlete to claim the Olympic and short course world titles in the same year. 

Despite the short course focus, Blummenfelt had already been dabbling in the longer racing formats with instant success. He secured the Ironman 70.3 Bahrain title three years consecutively from 2017, lowering the record time over the distance to 3:25:21 in the process.

Post Olympics, long course times and titles became a focus. HIs Ironman debut in Cozumel yielded a world best 7:21:11, and he showed it was no fluke by winning the delayed 2021 Ironman World Championship in May in St George with an equally emphatic 7:49:15 showing. 

Having posted an eye-wateringly fast 6:44:25 split in Germany in the Phoenix Foundation Sub7 project last summer, Blummenfelt clocked the fastest  time in the PTO’s Collins Cup over 100km and then put a disappointing third place in the Ironman World Championship in Hawaii behind him (at 7:43:22 it was still the third fastest time ever recorded on the Big Island), by winning the Ironman 70.3 title in St George in October.

With full focus now on short course racing as he prepares to defend his Olympic title in Paris next summer, we can also expect to see him deliver plenty of Super League drama this autumn too.