The final regular-season 2026 Pro Series event, Ironman 70.3 Zell am See-Kaprun, took place this past weekend…and our two biggest takeaways are: Laura Philipp is a genuine contender for the Pro Series title heading into championship season, and Lasse Nygaard Priester should be on the radar for championship racing – if he wasn’t already.

Following this victory, Philipp has moved to the top of the leaderboard heading into Nice and Kona. And this is significant given the uncertainty surrounding her earlier in the year, when she missed key start lines, including Roth, due to prolonged illness.

As Philipp shared, it’s “really fun to make spontaneous decisions,” adding that she’s “really motivated for this Pro Series game.” Zell am See was a last-minute addition to her racing calendar, but clearly a worthwhile one!

As for what’s next, she said: “The big goal of the year is to perform at my best in Kona. For Nice I don’t feel too much pressure.”

 

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Solveig Løvseth is potentially Philipp’s biggest threat, currently sitting fifth in the series standings. When we remove Philipp’s extra 70.3 result, the two are remarkably close, with Philipp ahead of Løvseth by a mere 37 points – equivalent to just 37 seconds in a race. Meanwhile, Kat Matthews is 2,422 points behind after missing one of her full-distance scoring opportunities in Texas. If we were making our bets, they’d be on Løvseth, with Philipp our second pick for the 2026 title.

Meanwhile, on the men’s side, while Matt Hanson currently leads the standings, that’s largely because he’s raced more, with five Pro Series scores already on the board ahead of championship racing. Correcting to include only the top three regular-season events for each contender (assuming Nice and Kona then round out their five scoring races), Marten Van Riel arguably enters championship season in the strongest position with 12,408 points, followed by Casper Stornes (12,244) and Jonas Schomburg (11,950).

Kristian Blummenfelt isn’t too far behind with 11,642 points from his best three races, but he’ll have some work to do if he wants to defend his 2025 series title.

But Pro Series aside, the man who won in Zell am See this past weekend, defeating two-time 70.3 world champion Jelle Geens, was Lasse Nygaard Priester. Pre-race, he shared: “I feel very confident in my run. I would be happy if it came down to a run battle.”

And a run battle with Geens was exactly what he got.

While Geens’ preparation had been impacted due to injury, most notably his run training, this is still a significant result for Priester, who has put together an outstanding season with five podiums from five races: second at Ironman 70.3 Valencia, third at Ironman 70.3 Pays d’Aix, second at the San Francisco T100, and victories at both Ironman 70.3 Sweden and Ironman 70.3 Zell am See-Kaprun.

While he isn’t contending for the Pro Series title with no full-distance races on his schedule, this man is one to watch in Nice in just under two weeks’ time.

We called it here first.

 

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