Today it’s time for the men’s World Championship Ironman 70.3 in Lahti. Race will start at 6:30 CEST. Kristian Blummenfelt, last week’s winner of the PTO Asian Open, is defending his title and has every interest in crowning himself World Champion once again. But, the man who gave him such a hard time last year will try to step up the game for sure: Ben Kanute. Other big names racing today include Frederic Funk, Sam Long, Jason West and Lionel Sanders.

In the live ticker below you will find updates and backgrounds from start to finish, keeping you fully informed of the latest developments throughout the race. The live ticker runs from bottom to top, so the latest updates always appear at the top. The time you’ll see at all the updates, equals to the race clock. Don’t forget to refresh your page (with F5) to get the latest updates automatically.

LIVE TICKER:

37:00: The men in the lead group all seem a little afraid of penalties. Yesterday we saw a lot of women in the penalty box and now no one wants to be behind someone else. Now Jan Stratmann goes to the front and so the German leads the race.

35:00: The roads are pretty damp. Let’s hope for not too many flat tires or – worse – crashes.

33:00: Frenchman Mathis Margirier now takes over the lead in the leading group. It is not the first time this season that he has asserted himself on the bike. Margirier may not be the biggest favorite for victory, but definitely can be seen as a more than dangerous outsider.

29:30: The bike course is one lap of 90 kilometers. Taylor Knibb, who yesterday became world champion for the second time in a row, revealed that the second half of the bike course is much tougher than the first half. There are quite a few climbs to overcome.

24:00: Kristian Blummenfelt is having a particularly bad swim. The defending champion comes out of the water in 28th and is 1.16 minutes behind. Lionel Sanders and Sam Long come out of the water at just over two minutes, but are together and that could cause fireworks on the bike.

23:30: The differences are minimal, with almost all the big names following behind. The first nineteen men are within twenty seconds of each other.

22:43: In the end, it is Justus Nieschlag who comes out of the water first. He is immediately followed by Jorgen Gunderson, Marc Dubrick, Rico Boegen, Ben Kanute and Menno Koolhaas.

20:00: In the final meters of the swim, some differences do arise and a small group of men seem to be breaking away from the larger group. All led by Marc Dubrick.

19:00: The men are heading toward the swim-exit and then we can have a first serious look at the gaps.

15:00: It’s a pretty physical swim. The men “fight” with each other for good positions and all try to be in the group.

12:00: No one manages to really swim away yet. But, they are pushing it. Marc Dubrick is leading at this point.

7:30: Both men are in the big group, so it seems that Long in particular is rising above himself at this point.

7:00: Sam Long is in the feet of Kristian Blummenfelt. That could mean two things: Long is having a particularly good swim today or Blummenfelt is having a particularly bad one.

3:00: At least, it is Ben Kanute, always one of the fastest swimmers and recognizable today by the green swim cap, who is in pursuit.

01:00: The field is immediately pulled apart. It is still unclear who is in the lead, what it is two athletes with white swim caps (that is, not a predetermined color) but it is going fast!

00:00: And we’re off. The Ironman 70.3 World Championship!

-6:00: With six minutes left until the start, the professional athletes are coming to the water. It’s about to begin!

-18:00: A number of participants in last week’s PTO Asian Open, including Kristian Blummenfelt and Jason West, have been quite ill over the past few days. Hopefully they have recovered enough to go all-in today.

-21:00: Let’s have a look at today’s participants:

-23:00: After yesterday’s drama, in which the live stream of the Ironman 70.3 World Championship (women’s race) was down for nearly an hour, Ironman is choosing not to rebroadcast the race via Outside Watch but rather its own YouTube channel.

-26:00: This is today’s swim course: athletes will swim from ‘A to B’ before they are allowed toward their bikes.

-28:00: Conditions look awesome. Unlike yesterday, the sun is shining. There does seem to be a bit more wind, although it is still negligible.

-30:00: With thirty minutes left until the start it is clear that today – just like yesterday with the women’s race – there will be swimming with wetsuit. Water temperature: 18.9 degrees.