IRONMAN 70.3 Kraków will award qualifying slots for the 2026 IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship in Nice, France, taking place on 12–13 September 2026:

• 30 qualifying slots for Age Group Women
• 30 qualifying slots for Age Group Men

If you qualify at IRONMAN 70.3 Kraków, you will be eligible to participate only in the 2026 IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship in Nice. Participation in the Slot Allocation Ceremony is mandatory for all athletes wishing to claim their slot.

For more information about the VinFast IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship, visit.

Be prepared to pay the registration fee by credit card only. We do not accept cash or cheques

Qualifying Slots

To accept a slot to the IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship, qualified athletes must claim their slot in-person at the Rolldown Ceremony at the advertised time and location, as detailed in the event guide. Photo ID is required to be presented and payment must be made at this point in time.

How does the Age Group Slot Allocation Work?​

“Age Group” refers to a grouping of athlete peers based on their gender and age range. For example, ‘Male 25-29’ is one Age Group, and ‘Female 25-29″ is another. Your Age Group is determined by your age as of December 315of the year of the event. For example, if you are Male and turn 25 in 2025, then your Age Group Category for any race in 2025 is M25 — 29.

The following Slot Allocation Process will be conducted for each gender separately.

Before Race Day:
Each qualifying event is allocated a number of age-group qualification slots for men and, the same number for women.

• From this allocation, each Male & Female Age Group is allocated one slot to be awarded to the Age Group winner. This is referred to as the “Automatic Qualifying Slot.”.
• All other slots available for the race are attributed to the Performance Pool, to be offered after the race is complete. These slots are referred to as the “Performance Pool Slots.” A separate Performance Pool of slots is maintained for men and for women so that slots remain equally split between genders.

On Race Day:
The winner of each Male & Female Age Group will automatically earn a qualifying slot (“Automatic Qualifying Slot”):

• If that slot is not taken, it will roll to the second-place finisher, and then to the third-place finisher if not taken by the second-place finisher.
• If the Automatic Qualifying Slot for a specific age group is not taken by one of the top three finishers, that slot is allocated to that gender’s ‘Performance Pool’ of qualifying slots that will then be offered to the next-most competitive athletes at the same event.

Once Age Group Winners have been offered slots following the process above, we move on to the allocation of slots via the “Performance Pool Slots”:

• The finish times of all remaining athletes at the event will be compared to a benchmark (The IRONMAN 70.3 Standard) that is created by averaging the top 20% of IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship finish times over the past 5 years for each age group (i.e., a global age-group standard for each gender and age group). By comparing each finish time to its age-group standard, we create an age-graded finish time for each athlete.
• To read more about the IRONMAN 70.3 Standard, click here.
• Athletes are then ranked within their gender, based on their age-graded finish times (i.e., their performance in the race relative to their own age-group standard); the athletes who are most competitive on race day relative to their age-group standard will rank highest.
• Using this ranking of the most competitive athletes, slots will then be offered and allocated using a ‘first to accept’ roll-down process. This roll-down process will continue until all qualifying slots for the women’s race are allocated, and then for the men’s race (or vice versa).

Only Age Group Athletes are eligible to receive Age Group World Championship Qualifying Slots. Athletes holding current Professional or Elite status with any World Triathlon Member National Triathlon Governing Body, WTC’s Pro Membership program or having raced as an elite athlete in any international events during the calendar year, are not eligible for Age Group Slots. Athletes may not at the time of the event, nor at the time of the World Championship event they qualified for, hold Professional or Elite status. Any change in an athlete’s status prior to any event participation or a qualified World Championship event must be disclosed to WTC immediately. Failure of the athlete to make such disclosure will be cause for disqualification from such event and may result in sanction from WTC Events.