How hard is it for a triathlon champion to switch to cycling and still want to be the best? That’s the journey 30-year-old Kristian Blummenfelt is undertaking and only time — four years from now — will tell, as the reigning Olympic champion this week confirmed his ambitious plans to win the 2028 Tour de France.

Blummenfelt has a few tricks up his sleeve that allow him to pull off such an audacious plan. For starters, while training to defend his gold medal in this year’s Olympic men’s triathlon in Paris (which was originally scheduled to take place but has now been postponed until tomorrow due to reports of pollution in the Seine River), the 30-year-old tested for the highest pure VO2 max, or the maximum amount of oxygen your body can absorb and use during exercise, ever measured in history.

And after months of rumors and speculation, Blummenfelt’s coach Olav Aleksander Bu finally revealed to Norwegian news channel TV2 that the 2021 Ironman and world champion will ditch his running shoes and swimming trunks to switch full-time to cycling.

“Let’s say there’s a 90 percent probability that we’ll go cycling next year,” Bu said. “The reason I say 90 is that we haven’t signed a contract yet. There are still a few minor things that need to be cleaned up, of course, but there are no reefs in the sea or anything like that. It means we’ll probably go cycling.”

“We’re not going to ride bikes to retire. We’re going to ride bikes to make a difference,” he added.

But is the dream too ambitious for the athlete who will be 34 by the time he plans to wear the yellow jersey? “It’s serious,” he said. “There has to be a yellow jersey in the Tour de France, it’s that simple.”

“We probably need a couple of years. The first year probably won’t be the Tour de France. 2025 will probably be more of a mapping year, where we have to figure out where we need to work. Not just with Kristian specifically, but also with the team.

“In 2026 we want to be in the Tour de France. In 2027 we have to be able to win some jerseys. If we’re not able to win some stages or be at the absolute top of the general classification, it’s hard to think that we’re going to do something magical until 2028. So we think we’re really going to test it in 2027, and then the goal is to go all-in in 2028.”

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The switch to cycling means signing a contract with a professional team. At the moment, nothing is concrete, but if the rumors are true, Team Jayco-AlUla, the Australian UCI WorldTeam formerly known as GreenEdge Cycling, is interested not only in Blummenfelt’s abilities, but also in the training methods and research that the endurance athlete from Bergen’s camp has been involved in.

In January, TV2 reported that when Blummenfelt tested after last year’s season, the results were so shocking that they burst out laughing. This year, the Olympic champion went even further and recorded the highest measured VO2 max in history.

He said: “I had high expectations for the test. I expected to do well, but I didn’t expect these numbers.”

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The results showed that the Blummenfelt was taking up more than 7.7 liters of oxygen per minute, which is almost seven percent more than the highest ever measured, 7.2 liters per minute. “Per kilogram it’s not the highest, but if you just look at the pure uptake, it’s a lot higher than anything that’s been measured so far,” he said.

If you look at his VO2 max in relation to his body weight, it turns out to be 96 milliliters per kilogram per minute. That is just a little less than the record that his Norwegian cyclist Oskar Svendsen once set.

However, Bu claimed that since the season hadn’t really started yet, Blummenfelt’s body weight was slightly higher than what it will be during the season, and that his true VO2 max per kilogram should be 103. His coach also revealed that it’s not just his oxygen uptake that’s at record levels — the triathlete is also putting out more watts on the bike.

One of the reasons for these figures could be the interesting training approach they developed together with athlete Gustav Iden. This approach is called the ‘Norwegian method’: a lactate-driven double threshold training that has taken the sports world, especially professional cycling and ultra running, by storm.

“We feel that the research, development, technology and approach that we bring is being welcomed with open arms by a number of cycling teams, who really understand that you have to go one step further,” Bu said.

While the Triathlon Hour podcast reported that Jayo-AlUla would be the frontrunner and could claim the progressive mindset of Blummenfelt and Bu as early as 2025, the team confirmed to Velo that it is all just speculation and that nothing is set in stone or on paper yet.

Cadel Evans, the first Australian to win the Tour — also aged 34 and coincidentally the same date of birth as Blummenfelt — spoke on Eurosport about the Norwegian who is aiming to become the first rider from his country to win the Tour: “When it comes to the physical aspect, they have a really good base… Acquiring the skills is probably the hardest part.”

While it can be tough, there are a few people who have made the transition from triathlon to cycling. Take Cameron Wurf, who, when he’s not posting his mental running or swimming stats to Strava, is working as a domestique for Ineos Grenadiers.

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Tobias Foss, the Norwegian cyclist for Ineos Grenadiers, called Blummenfelt an “insane physical talent” but added that he may still need some time if he wants to compete with the very best.

So if he defends his gold medal in Paris tomorrow, will that be Blummenfelt’s last race as a triathlon athlete at the Olympics? “That’s probably very likely,” Blummenfelt told TV2, adding that “a lot can still happen” when it comes to the direction his career takes.