IRONMAN World Championship 2025: Swim struggles depart Sam Laidlow with mountain to climb in Nice – Elite Information

Sam Laidlow, the winner when the boys’s IRONMAN World Championship was final held in Nice and one of many large favourites for this yr’s version, suffered a nightmare begin within the swim.

The Frenchman went into the race on the again of two good wins at Challenge Roth and IRONMAN Leeds.

And early in what was an extremely quick swim because the likes of Jamie Riddle (RSA), Andrea Salvisberg (SUI), Jonas Schomburg (GER) and Marten Van Riel (BEL) set the tempo, Laidlow was properly positioned within the prime 10.

In his earlier three IRONMAN World Championship appearances Laidlow had by no means been greater than 4 seconds off the tempo popping out of the water however on the halfway level of the three.8km swim within the Mediterranean Sea he out of the blue got here to a digital halt.

From prime 10 to twenty ninth

Laidlow had been on the toes of Antonio Benito Lopes (ESP) till then however he was now round 100 metres again and it was unclear what the difficulty was.

The tempo up entrance was unrelenting although and Laidlow was rapidly properly over a minute adrift.

He did get going once more however by the point they returned to the shore Laidlow was virtually precisely two minutes behind first-out-of-the-water Salvisberg.

Compare that to Benito Lopes, whom Laidlow had been alongside. The Spaniard was nonetheless a part of that 12-man entrance group, which was lined by simply 14 seconds.

It must be identified that Salvisberg’s time of 45:11 was means contained in the earlier finest in Nice of 47:46. And Laidlow clocked 47:11 in comparison with his 47:50 from his 2023 win – however on this event that was solely adequate for twenty ninth.

More time ebbs away

So all eyes had been on Laidlow going into T1 and he didn’t look comfy – and much from comfortable.

Whatever the issue, the Frenchman misplaced one other chunk of time in transition and beginning the bike he was now two minutes and 41 seconds adrift.

And that was out to three:18 by the primary checkpoint at 10km into the scenic 180km bike loop which heads into the hills above Nice – click on right here to WATCH LIVE to learn the way the remainder of the race performs out.

The excellent news for Laidlow was that he at the least began to restrict the injury by the 30km mark as he decreased the hole to the entrance of the race to beneath three minutes.