Topping off a fantastic season that included three major victories, CADEX triathlete Kristian Blummenfelt finished just off the top step in Marbella, only three seconds behind winner Jelle Geens. In doing so, Blummenfelt took the Ironman Pro Series title awarded to the most consistent Ironman competitor of the 2025 race season.
With his second-place finish on the day, Blummenfelt ended the series with 21,200 points, a 786-point margin over second-place series finisher Casper Stornes.
Piloting his CADEX Tri frame, Blummenfelt used the CADEX Max Aero Disc rear wheel and Aero 4-Spoke 1K front wheel on the demanding Marbella bike leg.
After coming through the second transition with the leaders, Blummenfelt and Geens broke clear from the front group on the run, leading to a duel along Marbella’s scenic waterfront.
Geens waited until the final kilometer to surge ahead, ultimately sprinting to the victory. Stornes, the reigning Ironman World Champion, rounded out the podium in third, one minute off the winning pace.
"I was saving myself for the last 1.5km, and you get one chance at a tactic like that," Blummenfelt told Triathlete. "Obviously, it didn’t work. The second option would have been going earlier, but I’ll never know if that would have worked because Jelle was still strong."
On his way to winning the series title (and the $200,000 bonus payout), Blummenfelt took victories at the Ironman Texas North American Championship, Ironman 70.3 Aix-en-Provence, and the Ironman Frankfurt European Championship.
His third-place finish at the Ironman World Championship in Nice added 5,703 points to his tally, keeping him atop the standings and firmly in contention for the Ironman Pro Series title heading into Marbella. Each Ironman Pro Series contender’s final score is an aggregate of their best five performances.
"If I could swap out the Pro Series for a world championship title, I would," Blummenfelt said. "But $200,000 is also quite nice to have in the bank."
Blummenfelt was one of three CADEX athletes to finish in the top 10 overall. His fellow Norwegian Gustav Iden finished fifth in the point standings with season highlights including the silver medal at the Ironman World Championships in Nice, France, and a podium at the Ironman 70.3 Oceanside event in California.
American Rudy von Berg finished one spot behind Iden in the Ironman Pro Series, ending up sixth with multiple podiums including second at the Ironman 70.3 Oceanside event and third at Ironman Texas.