IronMan World Championships Nice 2024 - A Spectators Jackpot! By Lindsay Straughton, Louise Ireland and Bex Smith (although she was a bit busy!!)

Early 2024 and we decided we needed a girls trip to Nice to support Bex Smith and see what all this World Championships fuss was about.

Also handy that it fell after both of our main races; the cheese and wine were calling!!

After a wee drive to Edinburgh and short but (thunderstorm aside) uneventful flight we arrived late Friday night in Nice and approached our accommodation with some trepidation. The street outside was busy and we found our accommodation hiding between a restaurant and a gelato shop.  In the dark the entrance staircase was like something out of a Liam Neeson film but in daylight we marvelled at how very “French” it all was - this was looking promising!

We woke up Saturday to glorious weather and headed straight to the beach, bypassing the merch tent for now, to take our athlete Bex for a final pre race dip. Louise was head up Mam swimming because we were only there for three nights and she didn’t want to get her hair wet.

The water was beautiful and the sun warmed us afterwards on the stoney beach. After many false alarms we didn’t actually spot any of the Pros so we headed for brunch.

God bless the French patisserie. We were in croissant heaven and carbed up like every serious triathlete should before heading to the Expo.

We drew a lot of attention wandering around in matching merch and were papped several times as we wandered the tents feeling pretty amazing.

We visited every stall trying the free samples, playing the games and bagging the freebies…popcorn, vouchers, bottles, tattoos, vitamin drinks, hydration we lapped it up. 

Stopping for a free coffee we marvelled at the scale of the offerings around us, until a freak gust of wind disrupted our peace and almost ruined the day for a group of Americans. Louise bounced into action, catching the raising of a substantial concrete parasol base with her powerful quad. The strength training (190w at 55rpm) paid off!

On the way out of the Expo Bex broke the record for the slowest construction of a rear hub. She still won a DT Swiss bottle but the big question was, would the race bespoke acrylic nails be a hindrance on race day?!

After all that excitement we were again on the hunt for food. Back to the outstanding patisserie we found earlier and a Tiramisu we’d pinky promised ourselves. We were winning at life today and loving every second.

It was now afternoon and time for a recce of transition and the run route with our athlete. The Pros were beginning to rack, the excitement was building and the place was buzzing as we waved Bex off for a final bike check so we could chill on the beach with a cocktail.

After a bit of stalking Bex managed to grab selfies with her fave Pros, she was fan girling hard! The excitement went to her head and we had to remind her to get into race mode, she was racing too, and there aren’t 25 letters in the alphabet so she better check properly were her bike rack was! Finally, as night fell we all went to bed early ready for a big day.

It was a 7:15am start for the Pros so we headed out at 6:30am to the beach. A nearby cafe was serving croissants and coffee and we were off to an awesome start with the jolly French national anthem getting everyone in the feels.

The eye catching SEC kit on race day caused a bit of a stir. We walked around getting many an enquiring glance from spectators and security. We seemed to be getting dubbed as top coaches during the daytime but as night fell Lindsay was repeatedly congratulated. It’s no wonder really, she oozes triathlete with the IM visor Oakley combo and killer quads, we just had to laugh at the attention and accept the compliment.

We passed the time shopping whilst Bex was on the bike leg, well browsing really, in the designer shops and eating more patisserie.

While she was on run we grabbed yet more food and treats between each lap from the amazing restaurants, before finally heading to the finish line.

We were eventually reunited with our stinky exhausted athlete after a gruelling day (eating patisserie is hard work!) and we ended the night with a post race debrief, pizza, pasta and Bex red wine reward.

All in all, we had a fab girls trip, but Coach Paul wants a race report, not a travel blog….. so here’s the serious bit!

Location

We were lucky to bag a reasonably priced room (£100 per night) within a 5 minute walk to the Expo and Transition.  Flights from the UK were also cheap enough for a 3 night long weekend trip (£150pp) albeit daft/late times.

The main athlete area and hotels are around 20 minutes from the airport via Uber – so all in the travel time and cost was no more than a long weekend in a UK city but with the added bonus of sunshine and a triathlon to watch!

The location also meant we were able to try out parts of the swim course ourselves in between eating patisseries and raiding the merch tent!

Expo and Merch

We all know the reality, we only do this shizzle for the bling and the merch!

The merch tent was elite. With a dream selection of Mdot goodies we couldn’t resist……”it’s the World Champs Baby” became a bit of a moto.

Everything, and we mean EVERYTHING in the merch tent was branded for the World Championships…… and my word is it pretty! Louise was like a woman let loose in Primark, turn your back and she’d vanished faster than the Scarlet Pimpernel only to resurface with arms full of more vests and visors than she could carry.

The expo was better than any race expo any of us have been to.  Tent after tent of various nutrition, products, kit brands all willing to give out samples and freebies.  At this point we started to wonder whether travelling cheap with only carry on hand luggage had been a wise idea?

Athlete Village

The transition area is long and thin running along the promenade.  At one end is the finish line and the long bike out/bike in, with the run route running alongside.

At first we thought this would be a nightmare, with access nigh on impossible in race day crowds. In reality it was very well organised with multiple course crossing points each only allowing crossing in one direction in order to keep spectators moving and prevent congestion/bottle necks.  Speaking to someone who was at Nice for the men’s race in 2023 this seems to be something the organisers have improved upon hugely.

It was also fairly easy to get close to the Pros coming in and out of racking – we missed most of them but Bex managed to get some proper fan girl moments!

Swim

The swim start again was pretty easy to access, much more so than Tenby and other events.  We were standing shoes off, thigh deep in the waves metres from the entry ramp ready to wave off the Pros and eagerly await the arrival of our girl for her wave.  A smile and a high 5 on the way in and that was her off!

We also managed to get across into the VIP area to be near the swim exit ramp.  After watching the leading Pros head off into T1 we left Bex family to wait for her exit and we made a beeline for the bike mount line to catch her there.

Bike

After standing patiently for what felt like eternity (it wasn’t!) we spotted our Bex coming – we were DEFINITELY the loudest cheer crew and even got congratulated by a guy from the US on our efforts with a “good job!!”

The bike is one big loop so we now had around 6.5hrs to fill before she came back in.

We made use of the time by going for another swim in the beautiful clear blue sea and eating yet more cheese and patisserie.

Run

The run course is 5km out 5km back along the promenade, repeat x4.  This makes it pretty good for spectators because we got to see Bex twice every lap.  It was a good opportunity to not only scream and shout words of encouragement (including things like “just get on with it!”) but to check she was ok and most importantly, enjoying herself!

The added bonus of our accommodation being 5 minutes from the main area was that we could do a carefully timed trip back to recharge our phones and grab you guessed it, more patisserie!

There was a real mix of athletes who were enjoying the experience vs those who were battling demons – but we shouted and screamed and reminded every single one how utterly badass they were and thoroughly deserving of their spot there and at the end, their medals.

At one point we got told off by Bex because we were so busy cheering other athletes on we almost missed her going past!

Going into her final lap we gave her a hug (Louise “she’s crunchy”) and a kiss (Linz “aye and she tastes a bit salty”) and sent her on her way to collect that medal.

Atmosphere

Oh. My. God.

There aren’t really words to describe the vibe of the whole weekend.  When we heard IronMan were splitting the men’s and women’s race,  like most people, we were sceptical and thought it was about increasing the profits.

But we are converted.

In no other sport are incredible, strong, awe inspiring women celebrated in such a way.  It was all about these badass women.  Seeing them with their partners carrying their bags, helping them into wetsuits, rubbing chafe cream on their necks was a sight to behold – women at the front and centre – absolutely amazing!

As a raging feminist this made Lindsay almost overwhelmed with emotion and pride.

The atmosphere of 1,400 hype girls plus their entourages shouting and cheering and spurring each other on, wishing each other luck, congratulating each other on their achievements, was truly remarkable – sorry fellas but we just can’t see a men’s race having this type of vibe (you take it way too serious!)

To any woman who is into triathlon YOU MUST take a trip to the Women’s World Championships, even if it’s only to spectate and not compete!

We had an absolutely amazing (have we used that word enough times?) trip.

But the icing on the cake was hearing the words “Rebecca Smith, you are an IronMan WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP FINISHER”