Zone3 Athletes 2026: Season Review
Kona, the IRONMAN Pro Series, T100 and WTCS: how Zone3 athletes raced in 2026, and how their feedback shapes our wetsuits.
Date:
October 15, 2026
Time:
10 min
In 2026, Zone3 athletes raced IRONMAN, Challenge, T100, WTCS and the Para World Championships.
Casper Stornes won IRONMAN Frankfurt. Kieran Lindars and Marta Sánchez each finished fifth in the IRONMAN Pro Series. Henry Urand won a third consecutive PTS3 world title, and Jess Fullagar took second on her T100 debut.
A season is a long thing. It starts in the January heat of Abu Dhabi and finishes, for the lucky ones, on the lava fields of Kona in October. In between there are early alarms, long bike miles, crashes, flat tyres and races that goes exactly to plan.
Here is how our athletes got through it, and what they taught us along the way.
2026 at a glance
| Athlete | Standout result | Series |
|---|---|---|
| Henry Urand | PTS3 World Champion, Pontevedra (third title in a row) | Para triathlon |
| Casper Stornes | 1st, IRONMAN Frankfurt | IRONMAN Pro Series |
| Kieran Lindars | 5th overall, IRONMAN Pro Series | IRONMAN Pro Series |
| Marta Sánchez | 5th overall, IRONMAN Pro Series | IRONMAN Pro Series |
| Katrine Græsbøll Christensen | 1st, Challenge Sir Bani Yas | Challenge |
| Jess Fullagar | 2nd, T100 Gold Coast (debut) | T100 |
| Euan De Nigro | Silver, Mediterranean Games | Short course |
| Mimi Carlton (Nebula Pro Team) | 2nd, IRONMAN 70.3 Gdynia | IRONMAN 70.3 |
| Rebecca Anderbury | Raced both world championships: 70.3 in Nice and IRONMAN in Kona | IRONMAN |
IRONMAN and the Pro Series
The IRONMAN Pro Series rewards consistency. Points come from a season of races rather than a single day, so the athletes near the top of the table are the ones who kept showing up fit. Two of ours finished fifth overall.
Casper Stornes
Casper Stornes won IRONMAN Frankfurt on 28 June in 4:50:23. Organisers shortened the course for the heat to a 125km bike and a half-marathon run, and Casper still beat Gustav Iden by two and a half minutes.
He opened the year with third at IRONMAN 70.3 Oceanside and third at IRONMAN Texas, then placed sixth at the 70.3 World Championship in Nice in September. Kona was meant to be his title defence. A training crash in late September broke his collarbone and a vertebra and ended his season. His message afterwards was short: he will be back in 2027. We'll be there when he is.
Kieran Lindars
Kieran Lindars finished fifth overall in the 2026 IRONMAN Pro Series. Nobody on our roster raced more consistently.
At IRONMAN Texas in April he finished in 7:32:03, a new British long-distance record. In July he was second at IRONMAN 70.3 Swansea, 46 seconds from the win on home roads. He closed the year with 17th at the World Championship in Kona, against the deepest field of the season.
Marta Sánchez
Marta Sánchez also finished fifth overall in the Pro Series, on the women's side. She was third at IRONMAN Texas in 8:31:06, a new Spanish record for the distance, and second at IRONMAN Lake Placid in July.
Texas came with a side bet. Her husband promised her a year off household chores if she made the podium. She did, and he is still paying up. At Kona she swam the third-fastest split in the women's field, 52:59, and finished 13th. A former elite synchronised swimmer, Marta still leaves most of the field behind in the water.
Katrine Græsbøll Christensen
Katrine Græsbøll Christensen won Challenge Sir Bani Yas in January and then barely stepped off the podium. She was second at IRONMAN South Africa, third at the IRONMAN European Championship in Hamburg and second at IRONMAN Kalmar in August.
She went to Kona 5th in the Pro Series standings. The race didn't go her way and she did not finish, but the season that got her there was one of the strongest on the women's circuit.
Rebecca Anderbury
Rebecca Anderbury came into 2026 with one goal: get to Kona. Fourth at IRONMAN Lanzarote in May secured it. Along the way she was second at Challenge Gdańsk and fourth at IRONMAN 70.3 Swansea, and she lined up in Nice for the 70.3 World Championship in September.
That made two world championship start lines in a month. Her day in Kona ended early, but qualifying for both is its own achievement.
Matthew Collins, Lukas Stahl and Nicholas Holmes
Matthew Collins spent 2026 building a full professional season over both distances. His best results were sixth at IRONMAN 70.3 Swansea, seventh at IRONMAN 70.3 Augusta and tenth at IRONMAN Wales.
Lukas Stahl raced five full-distance IRONMAN events, finishing 20th at Lake Placid.
Nicholas Holmes, from the USA, raced the IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship in Nice and finished 35th.
Kona 2026: the IRONMAN World Championship
Vincent Luis won the 2026 IRONMAN World Championship men's race in 7:47:27, and Taylor Knibb won the women's race in 8:36:29. Both races were held in Kona on 10 October.
Four Zone3 athletes started. Kieran Lindars finished 17th in 8:08:03 and Marta Sánchez finished 13th in 9:10:25. Katrine Græsbøll Christensen and Rebecca Anderbury both started and did not finish. Kona doesn't hand out finishes, and reaching the start line takes a full season of work.
The athlete we most wanted to see on the pier was Casper, defending the title he won in Nice in 2025. His crash kept him at home. We know he'll be back stronger and ready to line up in 2027.
Challenge and middle distance
The Challenge Family circuit gave our athletes some of their best days of the year. Katrine Græsbøll Christensen won Challenge Sir Bani Yas in January in 3:37:45, almost four minutes clear. Marta Sánchez was third at Challenge Salou and Rebecca Anderbury second at Challenge Gdańsk.
Tom Davis
Tom Davis raced eight times between January and July, mostly over the middle distance. His best results were seventh at Challenge Gdańsk and eighth at Challenge Salou. He also made his T100 start in San Francisco in June and finished 17th.
Tom came to triathlon from water polo, where he played for GB as a junior. His season paused after IRONMAN 70.3 Swansea in July.
Short course, T100 and WTCS
Short course racing is fast and tactical. One missed pack on the bike can cost a minute you never get back.
Jess Fullagar
Jess Fullagar finished second on her T100 debut at Gold Coast in March, one minute behind Taylor Knibb. She had the fastest swim of the day (26:04) and the fastest run (1:04:19), and she did it on a bike borrowed from Lucy Byram.
From there she went back to the World Triathlon Championship Series, placing 11th in Yokohama and 12th in Alghero. In July she won bronze with Great Britain at the Mixed Relay World Championships in Hamburg. Jess is building towards the Olympic Games, and this season showed what she can do over longer distances too.
Euan De Nigro
Euan De Nigro, racing for Italy, took silver in the individual race at the Mediterranean Games in Taranto in August, then helped Italy win the mixed relay gold two days later. In October he added second in the mixed relay at the World Cup in Rome. He comes into 2027 off the back of a U23 world bronze in 2025.
Angelica Prestia
Angelica Prestia, also racing for Italy, spent 2026 on the World Cup circuit, with starts in Edmonton, Rio, Asunción and Rome, plus the European Championships in Tarragona. She won U23 world silver in 2025.
Para triathlon
Henry Urand
Henry Urand is the PTS3 World Champion for the third year running. He won in Pontevedra on 25 September in 1:07:17, almost two minutes clear, with the fastest bike split in the field.
He didn't lose a race all year. Before Pontevedra he won the European title in Tarragona, the Para Cup in Besançon and the World Para Series round in Hamburg. Two days after his individual title he added a mixed relay world title. He finishes 2026 ranked number one in the world.
Nebula Pro Team
Nebula is a UK all-female professional team that brings athletes up through the age-group ranks and into pro racing. The 2026 squad was Eloise du Luart, Laura Addie, Mimi Carlton and SJ Goodwin, and they test Zone3 wetsuits as part of the partnership.
Mimi Carlton
Mimi Carlton had the breakout season of the group. She took her first professional podium with second at IRONMAN 70.3 Gdynia in July, then finished fifth at IRONMAN Wales in September, a top-five finish over the full distance. A former rower, she also coaches with the team.
Eloise du Luart
2026 was Eloise du Luart's first long-course season. She finished eighth at IRONMAN Switzerland in Thun in July in 9:20:21, and added fourth at Challenge Cesenatico and sixth at Challenge Vieux Boucau.
Laura Addie
Laura Addie is Nebula's head coach as well as one of its athletes. She finished fifth at IRONMAN 70.3 Vitoria-Gasteiz in July, and spent much of the year helping the rest of the squad reach their start lines.
From race feedback to the next wetsuit
Every race above produced notes for us. Athletes tell us where a panel feels delicate or restrictive, if they can feel a wetsuit seam during their swim, and how long it takes to get the suit off at T1 with cold hands.
Those notes go to our design team to be incorporated into future updates.
Our kit is also independently tested to ensure maximum peformance for different levels of athletes.
What Loughborough measured
Independent testing by Loughborough Sport put three swimmers through controlled 750m swims, with and without Zone3 wetsuits, at the same perceived effort. One was new to open water, one swam regularly and one was experienced. The swimmers went faster without working harder.
| Wetsuit | 750m performance | Stroke efficiency | Physiological load (blood lactate) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agile | +2.5% | +2.0% | −9% |
| Vision | +3.4% | +3.6% | −12% |
| Vanquish-X | +5.2% | +10.3% | −25% |
Results versus no wetsuit, averaged across three swimmers over controlled 750m swims at the same perceived effort.
The Vanquish-X, the most efficient wetsuit Zone3 makes, gave the biggest gains on every measure. The less experienced the swimmer, the more a wetsuit gave them. Read the full testing results.
What comes next
What our athletes told us this season is already shaping the next generation of Zone3 wetsuits. We'll share the details when they're ready to race.
Performance at the core
Zone3 started with a racer. Our founder, James Lock, was World Aquathlon and World Biathle Champion in 2006, and the company has worked the same way ever since: athletes race the kit, tell us what they feel, and we change it. The Speed Cuff began that way on the 2009 Aspire and is now used across the sport.
Performance runs through what we do and what we make. We test in the field with athletes like Kieran, Marta and Henry, and in the pool with Loughborough University Sport. The Aeroforce-X II trisuit was developed with aero specialists NoPinz.
The kit our athletes raced in this year is the kit we sell. The engineering and the testing don't change between a pro start line and your local lake next summer.
Thank you to every athlete who raced in Zone3 this year, and to everyone who cheered them on. Rest up. 2027 starts sooner than you think.
FAQs
Which athletes does Zone3 sponsor?
Zone3 works with professional triathletes across IRONMAN, Challenge, T100, WTCS and para triathlon. The roster includes 2025 IRONMAN World Champion Casper Stornes, British IM record holder Kieran Lindars, Marta Sánchez, Katrine Græsbøll Christensen, Rebecca Anderbury, Jess Fullagar, three-time PTS3 world champion Henry Urand and the all-female Nebula Pro Team.
How did Zone3 athletes perform in 2026?
Casper Stornes won IRONMAN Frankfurt, and Kieran Lindars and Marta Sánchez each finished fifth in the IRONMAN Pro Series. Henry Urand won his third consecutive PTS3 world title. Jess Fullagar was second on her T100 debut at Gold Coast with the fastest swim and run of the race.
Why did Casper Stornes miss Kona 2026?
Casper Stornes crashed in training in late September 2026, breaking his collarbone and a vertebra. He withdrew from the IRONMAN World Championship in Kona and plans to return in 2027.
Who won the 2026 IRONMAN World Championship?
Vincent Luis won the men's race in 7:47:27 and Taylor Knibb won the women's race in 8:36:29, in Kona on 10 October 2026. Zone3 athletes Marta Sánchez and Kieran Lindars finished 13th and 17th.
Do wetsuits make you swim faster?
Yes, in independent testing by Loughborough University Sport. Three swimmers swam 750m with and without Zone3 wetsuits at the same perceived effort. In the Vanquish-X they were 5.2% faster on average, with 10.3% better stroke efficiency and 25% lower blood lactate.
