Iowa Will Host the Ironman North American Championship

Iowa is set to become the host of a full-distance IRONMAN triathlon with the 2022 IRONMAN North American Championship. On June 12, Des Moines will become just one of a few cities in the nation to host an Ironman event while bringing in some of the best athletes on the planet.

The triathlon will take athletes through Des Moines, West Des Moines, and surrounding areas of Polk County and Dallas County. Registration for the Des Moines race opened up on November 1 --- and costs $699.

If you’re unfamiliar with an Ironman Triathlon, you can’t just hop off the couch and decide “I think I’ll try an Ironman today.” You have to be in elite shape as the race includes a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bicycle ride, concluding with a marathon – a 26 mile run, in that order. Around 90,000 athletes participated in Ironman events all over the world.

This Iowa race will offer qualifying slots to the 2023 IRONMAN World Championship in Hawaii. The current world record for the World Championship race in Hawaii was set in 2019 by Jan Frodeno (Germany), whose winning time was 7 hours 51 minutes 13 seconds. Daniela Ryf (Switzerland) set the women's course record in 2018 with a winning time of 8 hours 26 minutes 18 seconds.

However, the 2022 Ironman World Championship will move outside of Hawaii for the first time in its 44-year history, taking place in Utah on May 7, 2022, prior to returning to Hawaii with a new two-day race format on October 6 and 8, 2022.

What can you win? In 2019, the male and female World Championship winners won $120,000. Second place won $60K, and third place still received $40,000. Even if you finish in 10^th place, you get $10K. Personally, I’d be happy with just finishing the race.