The IRONSTAR sports festival was held for the first time in Yekaterinburg

On July 21–22, the IRONSTAR EKATERINBURG 2023 sports fes­ti­val was held in Yeka­ter­in­burg. This year the city became a new point on the IRONSTAR fes­ti­val map. The event includ­ed wom­en’s and chil­dren’s races, open water swims and triathlon races at dis­tances of 113 km and SPRINT. In total, more than 1,200 peo­ple from 163 Russ­ian cities took part in the com­pe­ti­tion.

On the first day of com­pe­ti­tion, SWIMSTAR open water swims took place at dis­tances of 1 and 2 nau­ti­cal miles. The par­tic­i­pants cov­ered 1,852 km and 3,704 km, respec­tive­ly, in the water area of ​​the City Pond. In addi­tion, on July 21, the STARKIDS chil­dren’s race was held. Young ath­letes tried their hand at the 500m and 1000m dis­tances and received real fin­ish­er medals. The com­ple­tion of the first day of the fes­ti­val was the IRONLADY wom­en’s race. The girls cov­ered 5 km along the prom­e­nade along the embank­ment of the City Pond.

On the sec­ond day, the par­tic­i­pants of the “half-iron” dis­tance – 113 km and the SPRINT dis­tance – test­ed their strength. Over a dis­tance of 113 km, triath­letes cov­ered 1.93 km of swim­ming, 90 km of cycling and 21.1 km of run­ning. Com­peti­tors in the SPRINT dis­tance were treat­ed to a 0.75 km swim, a 20 km bike race, and a 5 km race.

The swim­ming stage took place in the water area of ​​the City Pond, the cycling stage was laid along the cen­tral streets past his­tor­i­cal mon­u­ments and the Novo-Moskovsky tract, and the run­ning stage took place along the prom­e­nade along the embank­ment of the City Pond. A dis­tinc­tive fea­ture of the start in Yeka­ter­in­burg is the tran­sit zone and the fin­ish of the par­tic­i­pants at the sta­di­um. The fin­ish arch stood on the Dynamo run­ning track and added spec­ta­cle to the most impor­tant moment of the race — the com­ple­tion of the dis­tance. Such a fin­ish is unique in triathlon com­pe­ti­tions in Rus­sia, and in world prac­tice this has only been done a few times.

Among the fes­ti­val par­tic­i­pants were a record num­ber of para ath­letes this IRONSTAR sea­son: a total of 15 peo­ple fin­ished in var­i­ous races of the fes­ti­val, includ­ing over­com­ing the half-iron dis­tance triathlon. Sergey She­la­pu­g­in and Natalya Chift­dzhi per­formed in two tandems with the wards of the “More Than You Can” Foun­da­tion. The ath­letes entered the 113 km race togeth­er with Boris Bredikhin and Anna Gordee­va — their charges were diag­nosed with cere­bral pal­sy.

The com­pe­ti­tion was broad­cast live on the offi­cial IRONSTAR plat­forms and is avail­able in record­ing.

“The start in Yeka­ter­in­burg, our new loca­tion, turned out to be col­or­ful and dynam­ic. A pic­turesque swim­ming stage over­look­ing the new quar­ter of Yeka­ter­in­burg City, the his­tor­i­cal cen­ter dur­ing the run­ning and cycling stages — this is what we want­ed to show our par­tic­i­pants. We look for­ward to next year to hold our sports fes­ti­val here again. Thank you to the City Admin­is­tra­tion for help­ing to light a new star on the IRONSTAR map.”- shared CEO of IRONSTAR Vladimir Sheikin .