Mayor Mitch Roth attended the 2021 Ironman World Championship in St. George, Utah, last weekend “in a show of partnership between the City of St. George and the County of Hawaii through their willingness to temporarily take on the coveted event,” according to a press release from the mayor’s office.
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 and Ironman staff due to drastic increases in on-island case counts of COVID-19.
The event was later planned to be held in early February of this year, but was again postponed due to the case-count spikes caused by the Omicron variant. This past weekend’s event was the first Ironman World Championship held outside Hawaii County since its inception.
The Ironman World Championship is scheduled to return to Kailua-Kona for two events on Oct. 6 and Oct. 8.
One event will be at the professional level, and the other will be age group-based. In addition, representatives of the City of St. George will attend in a show of support for their newly formed partnership with the county.