This past weekend, Hawaiʻi County Mayor Mitch Roth attended the 2021 IRONMAN World Championship in St. George, Utah.

This past weekend’s event was the first IRONMAN World Championship held outside of Hawaiʻi County since its inception.  The 2021 championship event was initially slated to be held in its hometown of Kailua-Kona in October of last year but was postponed as part of an agreement between the County of Hawaiʻi and IRONMAN staff due to increases in on-island COVID-19 case counts.  The event was later planned for early February of this year, but it was again postponed due to the case-count spikes caused by the Omicron variant.

In a press release Mayor Roth said, “We are extremely grateful to IRONMAN and the City of St. George for their willingness to work with us to find a creative solution that ensured our athletes could compete at the highest level while maintaining a safe Hawaiʻi Island for all.  IRONMAN is a part of our local ‘ohana here. They have been extremely gracious in understanding our priorities and have worked closely with our administration to address each of our shared concerns. Because of the teamwork exhibited and the arduous work of the community, we can now look forward to welcoming back the IRONMAN World Championship to our shores in October for not one but two events!”

The IRONMAN World Championship is scheduled to return to Kailua-Kona for two events on October 6 and 8 of this year.  One event will be at the professional level, and the other will be age group-based. City of St. George representatives will attend in a show of support for their newly formed partnership with the County of Hawaiʻi.