Ironman Leeds 2025: Age Group Stats and Qualification Times
A brand new race to review this week. Ironman returns to England with a new base in Leeds. A new race means there’s no direct race history to compare the 2025 event with. So, I’ve made comparisons with the old Ironman UK course in Bolton and also with this year’s European Ironman events. This should give some sense of where Ironman Leeds stands with respect to other races.
Result Distributions
The old Ironman UK course in Bolton was known for a challenging and slow bike course. That much is evident comparing bike splits from Leeds with Bolton. The Leeds course is faster than the old Bolton course. A difference of around 20 minutes that looks to be consistent across the field. The run course also trends faster, by a smaller degree, and even the swim comes in slightly quicker. The overall result suggests that Leeds is a faster course.
If we compare with results from Europe in 2025 our perspective shifts. There are a lot of very fast European races and the difference in bike splits is huge. In Leeds the average bike was over 7 hours, if we consider all the European races so far, it’s under 6 hours. With a slower run and broadly comparable swim the overall finisher distribution is significantly slower than the rest of Europe.
DNF Rates
DNF rates for Leeds are what I’d consider normal for Ironman. Certainly not the lowest levels seen at a race, but as comparison with Bolton shows – not extreme. A slow bike course, but not one that heavily limited finishing rates.
Median Splits
Medians follow the trend of the distributions. I’ve only supplied Bolton as a comparison, so we see Leeds has a faster bike and slightly faster run. IF I did the same for European races we’d see the opposite trend.
Competitor Origins
The majority of competitors came from the UK, not too surprising for a new race here. They’re also likely to have taken most of the slots. Not shown in the table, but I’ll also note, around one third of competitors appeared to be new to Ironman, or at least I couldn’t identify them in past results. So, a relatively local and new field for this first race.
Qualification
Ironman Leeds is a 2025 qualifier and so uses the old method of slot allocation based on start numbers. I’ve calculated the expected slot allocation based on these and from that the final qualifying times without roll down. You can play with these numbers and see how the new system would work in Leeds on my Ironman Leeds qualification page.
Age Group Top 20
To give some context to the top 20 performances in each age group at Leeds I’ve also plotted some past results and the average times from Ironman Bolton. With a small number of exceptions every age group trends faster than their Bolton average. To be expected given the difference in bike splits we’ve already seen.
Conclusion
We’ll need to wait another year or two to fully assess the Leeds course. If the first year is any indication we have a race that may not be as slow as the old Bolton course, but is definitely not a fast course like many in mainland Europe.