Abstract
Background
Pacing in ultra-triathlon has been investigated by analyzing lap times from Double to Deca Iron ultra-triathlon for World Cup races but not for a World Championship. The present study aimed to investigate pacing in ultra-triathletes competing in the fastest and largest World Championship in Quintuple Iron ultra-triathlon ever held in history.
Methods
A total of 11 female and 24 male finishers who completed the 2024 Quintuple Ultra Triathlon World Championship in Colmar, France, were analyzed. Independent t-tests assessed sex-based performance variations with effect sizes (Cohen’s d). A two-way ANOVA evaluated the effects of sex and performance quartiles on cycling and running, with eta squared (η²) used to measure effect sizes.
Results
Overall, men were slower in swimming and cycling and faster in running and overall race time. The variability in lap times was similar in cycling for both women and men but higher in running for women. There was a significant interaction between sex and performance quartiles in cycling but not running. For cycling, the variability in performance was higher in men compared to women; for running, it was similar for both women and men.
Conclusions
The finding that women outperformed men in swimming and cycling, likely due to the elite nature of the World Championship, which featured a highly selected and committed female cohort with a high completion rate. While both sexes showed consistent pacing in cycling, women exhibited greater variability in running, possibly due to more frequent breaks.
Citation: Knechtle B, Leite LB, Duric S, Cuk I, Andrade MS, Scheer V, et al. (2025) Sex differences in performance and pacing in the greatest Quintuple Iron ultra-triathlon race in history: The IUTA World Championship 2024 in France. PLoS One 20(9):
e0331563.
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0331563
Editor: Ratko Peric, Orthopedic Clinic Orthosport, BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA
Received: June 10, 2025; Accepted: August 15, 2025; Published: September 3, 2025
Copyright: © 2025 Knechtle et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Data Availability: All relevant data are within the paper and its Supporting Information files.
Funding: The author(s) received no specific funding for this work.
Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
Description
This study investigates sex differences in performance and pacing in the Quintuple Iron ultra-triathlon.