Gustav Iden, PTO Asian Open | Beyond Human: The Series | Ep 7

Look out for Gustav Eden, we'll be seeing how he performs today after a long absence. Nine races in a row, never losing a race. Everything has to come to an end. When you are the reigning world champion it's hard to live up to people's expectations when I know that training has been pretty rough. He had an unbeatable season last year, this season has been a little bit quieter. 7.3 world record, I can't go there anymore. You just need to get out of there and see what he does. I'm not sure if it's confidence or realism because I just speak exactly what I think I can do. Like going into Kona I said, yeah, I think I will win here, but that's because I honestly thought this is my race to win. Gustav Eden is almost unbeatable at this distance, he's incredible at this distance. As the man who has not lost PTO race, from Norway, Gustav Eden will claim victory here. Before I didn't realize how much part the mental thing is in sport. It's so easy when everything is going your way, you don't even think about it's going to be a problem because you're just floating. The level now in triathlon is so insanely high, so if you're not enjoying it and doing it with purpose, yeah, it's hard. Triathlon is growing more and more. It is quite insane. Before the PTO came to play, everyone was just kind of dodging the competition and racing smaller races, but now to beat anyone in triathlon in long distance, you have to do the PTO because that's where people are paying attention. The level is just keep on going up and if you're standing still or backwards, it's hard to be at the top. And so here we go once again, with a new weekend, on a new continent, in a new country, with new rivalries to ignite and new champions to crown. Welcome to the PTO's newest playground of the gods. It isn't that fun to race when you know you have no chance to win and the best outcome is to not be disappointed. But here we go. We are racing in Singapore, 100 kilometers of top swim bike run here for the PTO Asian Open. Norwegian superstars Christian Blummenfelt and Gustav Iden, today they race as teammates and also as rivals. The influence that Gustav has on Christian. He's a lot more savvy. I feel tactically when Gustav's in the race. So we'll get to see how that plays out today. All strung out, coming into T1 now. This is an interesting dynamic. This is the biggest lead group that we've seen out of the water on the PTO Tour. So Blummenfelt, fast time in a swim, comes out with the fastest transition as well. I mean, very well accustomed to fast transition from his short course. There's so many unknowns around Christian's race today. He's rewriting the rule book in terms of what was considered good recovery, race scheduling. He's done the Olympic test event in Paris two days ago, flown across continents to get here and race. And I just feel having Gustav in the race, it tends to hold him more accountable with this tactic. Gustav Iden's lost quite a bit of time. He's now two minutes, two minutes, 45 back. So I mean, that's not exactly where we're used to seeing him, but that has been his 2023. Oh, as we see. Is that Gustav? Gustav. The race is sort of going from bad to worse for Gustav Iden. That's around the far U-turn too. He would have done a million of those in his life. He's having a terrible year and it's, of all the athletes in this course, he's technically so good. You wouldn't expect to see that. It's funny, Carol, isn't it? Me and you talked about this a lot during the week. If this was 2022 at this course, Gustav Iden would have been the unbackable favourite. But 2023 has just been such a tough year for him and you sort of hate to see this. It's actually quite heartbreaking. I've kind of written 23 off already, it was just not performing well in the start. And then my mother passed away and yeah, that was really tough. So Christian Blummenfelt has dismounted and he's run his way. The mercury is rising in the Pizzo Asia Open. We have a new leader, Christian Blummenfelt out front. The most complete triathlete on the planet right now. Christian Blummenfelt is the PTO Tour Asian Champion 2023. He's done it. Well, we promised you thrills and spills aplenty here at the PTO Asian Open and my word, did these extraordinary athletes deliver. And if 2023 is anything to go by, we have got so much more to look forward to in 2024.