Who’s Ready for Ironman 70.3 Oceanside?

This weekend sees the 2022 pro triathlon race season really hotting up across the world with a top field taking on Ironman 70.3 Oceanside as well as serious racers toeing the line at Challenge Salou and Ironman South Africa, the African Championship.

Here’s the lowdown on the biggest names who could swim, bike and run their way onto the podium at Ironman 70.3 Oceanside.

Always an early-season hit out for the cream of North American racing, Oceanside has even bigger prominence this year ahead of May’s Ironman World Championship in St. George.

Date: Saturday 2 April
Location: Oceanside, California
Local start time: 06:40

Men’s Race – Brownlee Is Back!

Top Ranked athletes:

Lionel Sanders (PTO #3)
Ben Kanute (PTO #8)
Rudy Von Berg (PTO #10)

Oceanside has seen many epic battles over the years – including an awesome showdown between Lionel Sanders and Jan Frodeno in 2018 – but one athlete who’s never raced in this stacked-field season opener is double Olympic champ, Alistair Brownlee.

That’s set to change on Saturday though. After his absence in the second half of 2021 following his attempts to qualify for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and a long recovery from ankle surgery, two-time Olympic Champion Ali Brownlee is back!

Brownlee will face none other than Lionel Sanders, whose race against Frodeno here in 2018 lit a fire within Sanders that still burns strong to this day. Sanders comes into the 2022 season confident having executed strong consistent performance at the end of 2021 under the guidance of new coach Mikal Iden (big brother and coach of Gustav Iden).

Brownlee and Sanders have met before on three occasions (Challenge Samorin 2017, Kona 2019 and the PTO 2020 Championship) but on all occasions either one or both did not have strong days so have never had the chance to go toe-to-toe with one another.

Having not seen Brownlee race since his Olympic qualification bid ended in a controversial DQ at WTCS Leeds back in June 2021, it could be reasonable to have a question mark hanging over Brownlee’s form upon return… However, word on the street is that Brownlee is stronger and faster than ever over the middle and long distance!

This would bode well for him in a year where he is also set to go up against Kristian Blummenfelt in the Pho3nix Sub7 Project. While both are aiming to beat the seven-hour mark, they are equally going to be battling to see who can go under seven hours by the biggest margin.

Brownlee and Sanders may be the headline names racing in Oceanside but you should never count out the likes of Ben Kanute, Rudy Von Berg, Jackson Laundry, Sam Appleton, Matt Hanson and so many more world class athletes all on the start list.

Ben Kanute of course has won Oceanside on the previous two runnings of the race in 2021 and 2019 (the 2020 edition was cancelled due to COVID), beating Rudy Von Berg on one of those occasions in 2019 by just 12 seconds! There will certainly be a score to settle there.

Women’s Race – Knibb vs. Ryf Reimagined!

Top-ranked athletes:

Daniela Ryf (PTO #3)
Taylor Knibb (PTO #5)
Skye Moench (PTO #8)

The last (and so far only) time that Daniela Ryf and Taylor Knibb have raced one another was their match at The Collins Cup where Ryf was self-admittedly not on form and “arguably shouldn’t have raced but didn’t want to let the team down”. Knibb took an ‘easy’ match victory and was disappointed that she didn’t get to race Daniela on her best day. Now is Knibb’s chance to take on a refreshed Ryf, who’s back and stronger than ever with a new mindset to training, racing and life in general.

The women’s start list is equally as stacked as the men’s, meaning that if Ryf or Knibb let slip even just a little, there will be many fierce competitors ready to pounce on them for the win! Skye Moench, Paula Findlay, Holly Lawrence, Heather Jackson, Jackie Hering, Tamara Jewett and Chelsea Sodaro are all names that could be very much in the mix come Saturday.

Don’t forget to watch out for former short-course athlete Ashleigh Gentle, who’s coming off a big win at Clash Miami. A few more races like that and she’s sure to shoot up the PTO World Rankings and become a shoo-in for the Collins Cup this August.