It is time to be on the top step.
Magnus Ditlev, known across the sport as the Great Dane, has already carved out his place in triathlon history. He is a three-time Challenge Roth champion and holds the world’s best time over the full distance with a staggering 7:23:24. Yet for all his dominance on the bike and his fearless racing, one prize still drives him: the Ironman World Championship title.
Ditlev has been close. In Kona last year, he battled through what he called the toughest day of his career. “I was in a very dark place the last hour of the bike and I was thinking about quitting all the time,” he admitted afterward. Yet he refused to step off course, instead fighting through to claim second place. That ordeal, he says, left him with a kind of mental resilience that he will carry for the rest of his life.
In 2023, when the World Championship shifted to Nice, Ditlev finished third, again showcasing his unmatched bike power with the second fastest split behind eventual winner Sam Laidlow. But that version of Magnus, he insists, no longer exists. In an interview with Bob Babbitt, reflecting on that race in Nice, he declared: “I’m a completely different athlete now.” Coming from someone who has already stood on the podium, it is a statement that should make every rival pause.
What makes the story even more compelling is how unlikely it once seemed. Ditlev did not grow up on a bike. He was not the child picked first for the football pitch or chosen to represent at track meets. Instead, he was late to sport and has had to evolve. Yet the athlete who once doubted his own talent has now transformed into one of triathlon’s most feared contenders.
This season, he has done what champions often do: narrowed his focus. Unlike past years, Ditlev has built his entire 2025 campaign around one goal, one peak, and one race: the World Championship in Nice. When asked what a win would mean, his answer revealed both vulnerability and conviction. “It’s the race that motivates me the most and the race that has the biggest history in the sport and it would just be so special. It’s what I’ve been chasing.” It’s a race he describes as being “on my mind almost every day.”
For the past two year, Magnus Ditlev has been among the top three in the world. Now, with family and friends on the ground in France and countless fans following from home, all eyes turn to the Great Dane. Adaptable, relentless, and transformed, he is ready for the one step he has yet to take, the very top.
Watch the full Bob Babbitt interview below!
The post Magnus Ditlev’s Quest for the Top Step at the Nice Ironman World Championship appeared first on Triathlon Magazine Canada.