Norway’s Solveig Løvseth raced at the Paris Olympics last year but this season she has gone all in on longer distance and took her tally of 70.3 victories to three when winning IRONMAN 70.3 Venice-Jesolo at the start of May.

That was an IRONMAN Pro Series event and such was her dominance, there was huge excitement ahead of her full-distance debut in Hamburg.

But she hadn’t given herself an easy first assignment, far from it. She was up against the first two women from the IRONMAN World Championship last year, Germany’s Laura Philipp and Britain’s Kat Matthews. Not to mention the defending champion Jackie Hering of America, plus plenty of others.

But when we spoke to her in the build up, she wasn’t fazed, telling us: “I hope I can find the balance between respecting the distance enough, but also being offensive and not too conservative. And I definitely think it’s extremely cool that I get the chance to do my first Ironman in such a high-quality field!”

And she was good to her word from the outset in Hamburg as she was in the front swim group of four with Philipp, Matthews and Hering – and then pushed the first two all the way on the bike as Hering dropped away.

Even having one of her aero bars come loose didn’t derail Løvseth, she simply got it repaired and bridged back up before maintaining the momentum on the run to cross the line in 8: 12: 28.

At the start of this season that would have been the fastest female IRONMAN time ever. It still shattered the best for a debutant and the only ‘problem’ for Løvseth was that Philipp and Matthews were breaking records of their own as they set the two quickest times in history in an IRONMAN-branded race of 8: 03: 13 and 8: 05: 13 respectively.

It’s hard to thinking of anything comparable on the female side, certainly in recent years. And for the men it’s got to be right up there or supass fellow Norwegians Kristian Blummenfelt (7: 27: 25 at IRONMAN Cozumel in 2021) or Gustav Iden (7: 42: 57 at IRONMAN Florida the same year). And that pair both went on to become IRONMAN World Champions.

Speaking afterwards, Løvseth joked: “I didn’t know Ironmans were that eventful! I sort of had a feeling that they would be a bit boring since they’re so long.”

Talking through her race, she explained: “I really tried early on to get onto Ka

Norway’s Solveig Løvseth raced at the Paris Olympics last year but this season she has gone all in on longer distance and took her tally of 70.3 victories to three when winning IRONMAN 70.3 Venice-Jesolo at the start of May.

That was an IRONMAN Pro Series event and such was her dominance, there was huge excitement ahead of her full-distance debut in Hamburg.

But she hadn’t given herself an easy first assignment, far from it. She was up against the first two women from the IRONMAN World Championship last year, Germany’s Laura Philipp and Britain’s Kat Matthews. Not to mention the defending champion Jackie Hering of America, plus plenty of others.

But when we spoke to her in the build up, she wasn’t fazed, telling us: “I hope I can find the balance between respecting the distance enough, but also being offensive and not too conservative. And I definitely think it’s extremely cool that I get the chance to do my first Ironman in such a high-quality field!”

And she was good to her word from the outset in Hamburg as she was in the front swim group of four with Philipp, Matthews and Hering – and then pushed the first two all the way on the bike as Hering dropped away.

Even having one of her aero bars come loose didn’t derail Løvseth, she simply got it repaired and bridged back up before maintaining the momentum on the run to cross the line in 8: 12: 28.

At the start of this season that would have been the fastest female IRONMAN time ever. It still shattered the best for a debutant and the only ‘problem’ for Løvseth was that Philipp and Matthews were breaking records of their own as they set the two quickest times in history in an IRONMAN-branded race of 8: 03: 13 and 8: 05: 13 respectively.

It’s hard to thinking of anything comparable on the female side, certainly in recent years. And for the men it’s got to be right up there or supass fellow Norwegians Kristian Blummenfelt (7: 27: 25 at IRONMAN Cozumel in 2021) or Gustav Iden (7: 42: 57 at IRONMAN Florida the same year). And that pair both went on to become IRONMAN World Champions.

Speaking afterwards, Løvseth joked: “I didn’t know Ironmans were that eventful! I sort of had a feeling that they would be a bit boring since they’re so long.”

Talking through her race, she explained: “I really tried early on to get onto Ka