2026 Ironman World Championship on TV: Live stream on 18 October and on ZDF

ZDF will broadcast the 2026 Ironman World Championship from Kailua-Kona in Hawaii. The live stream on ZDFsportstudio.de will begin on Saturday, 10 October, at 6.10 pm German time. The men’s race starts at 6.20 pm, with the women’s race following ten minutes later. On linear television, ZDF will broadcast the decisive phase live on ZDFsportstudio from 12.25 am until 3.45 am.

Presenter Lena Kesting is reporting live from Hawaii alongside Jan Frodeno, who won three times in Hawaii between 2015 and 2019. Florian Zschiedrich is conducting interviews at the race course. Martin Schneider is providing commentary on the races alongside Anne Haug, who won in Hawaii in 2019.

Return to racing together

Following a three-year period of separation and rotation with Nice, professional and age-group athletes are once again competing together on the same race day. In 2023, the organiser had tried an experiment: the men’s and women’s races took place separately on different continents. The venues alternated between Nice and Hawaii. This arrangement drew criticism from both professional and age-group athletes. Last year, the women’s World Championship was held in Kona, whilst the men’s took place in Nice.

The athletes swim 3.86 kilometres, then cycle 180 kilometres and finally run 42.195 kilometres. German professionals have won a total of 13 Ironman World Championship titles, twelve of which were in Hawaii and one in Nice. In 2024, Patrick Lange won the men’s event and Laura Philipp the women’s.

Men’s favourites at the Ironman World Championships

Two weeks before the World Championships, defending champion (Ironman World Championships, Nice) Casper Stornes from Norway withdrew from the event. He was injured in a fall during training. His compatriot Kristian Blummenfelt, who finished third behind Gustav Iden last year, is considered the top favourite. Blummenfelt is still waiting to win a world title in Hawaii. In 2021, he became world champion in St George, Utah, which was the alternative venue for Kona at the time due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Apart from Iden, his biggest rival is likely to be the Frenchman Sam Laidlow, who became world champion in 2023 but has not yet competed in Hawaii either. Last year, Laidlow held a clear lead after the cycling leg, but faltered in the marathon and dropped out of the top 10. Other favourites for a place in the top ten include Marten van Riel from Belgium, Nick Thompson from Australia, Matthew Marquardt from the USA, and the German professionals Patrick Lange and Jonas Schomburg. For 40-year-old Lange, this will be his final appearance at the Ironman World Championship.

Favourites in the women’s Ironman World Championships

In the women’s race, a head-to-head battle is shaping up between Taylor Knibb from the USA and Lucy Charles-Barclay from Great Britain. Knibb recently won the World Championship middle-distance race and led the race in Hawaii last year until shortly before the finish, but then collapsed. Charles-Barclay had already triumphed in Hawaii in 2023 ahead of Anne Haug, who has since retired.

Charles-Barclay had to withdraw from last year’s marathon, but this year she has focused entirely on Hawaii and has even skipped the Middle-Distance World Championships as the defending champion. The Norwegian Solveig Lovseth became world champion in Hawaii in 2025 and has also put in impressive performances so far this year. Laura Philipp has good prospects following three podium finishes in the past three years. Other favourites include Kat Matthews from Great Britain, Hannah Berry from New Zealand, Chelsea Sodaro from the USA and Julie Derron from Switzerland.

Canyon Speedmax TT time trial bike