This weekend, IRONMAN 70.3 Punta del Este brought together 1,500 athletes of 19 nationalities in the Uruguayan resort that gives its name to the event.
The start, the tour of the peninsula, the finish line, all with an audience. And on the professional starting line, only three men and three women. Never before has such a meagre PRO cartel been seen.
As we have already criticized on other occasions, the demanding international calendar makes situations of this type begin to occur: having tests from February to December makes the Bronze category - which also give slots for Nice, everything is said - present such a bleak picture.
There were four... and there were three
Martín Ulloa was the big male favorite and didn't make it out. His discharge left the pro-men's category with Federico Scarabino, Casimir Moine and Flavio Morandini.
Scarabino knew that Moine was beating him in the foot race, so he went out to force himself on the 90-kilometer bike. He completed the segment in 2:05:52, reached the half marathon with the Frenchman already with his legs loaded and held on with a 1:15:26 that gave him the victory with 3:48:47 and three minutes over Moine.
Morandini - ranking 329 in the PTO - finished almost 40 minutes behind the winner.
Scarabino places this victory above all his because it is in his country. That's understandable. What doesn't add up is that an IRONMAN 70.3 with 1,500 amateurs at the exit and a crowd at every meter of the course has three male professionals, one of them absent before starting.
Romina Palacio wins a race that no one wanted to run
In feminine it was more striking. Romina Palacio Balena, Bruna Stolf and Olivia Dietzel. Positions 155, 173 and 180 of the PTO ranking.
The only three professionals registered. If we had abandoned one along the way, we would have even had an incomplete podium.
Fortunately, this was not the case: Palacio won with 4:34:57, Stolf was second with 4:41:30 and Dietzel third with 4:54:04.
Palacio has been competing in the region for years. She won in Ecuador in 2024, was sixth in Florianópolis and fourth in Valdivia in 2025. Get to know these circuits and race regularly through this area of the calendar. But the 155th place in the world winning an IRONMAN 70.3 with only two rivals behind is not normal, and the responsibility is not yours.
The women's professional triathlon has a depth of field problem that becomes more visible in low-profile events: there is no notoriety, there are hardly any prizes, and the event is only attractive to those who are in the area.
When the calendar piles up options each weekend, ranked athletes choose where it suits them best. Punta del Este, with all its organization and its public, stayed with those who had nowhere else to go.