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Jul

Frankfurter Sparkasse Ironman European Championships

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Germany victorious

While younger brother Michael is making all the headlines with his results over the 70.3 distance, Andreas Raelert showed that he too can lead from the front with a devastating display of power biking to crush the field and take the Ironman European Championship.

Raelert made the most of a non-wetsuit swim to exit T1 in the lead and then set about destroying the field on a bike course that measured 185km’s, instead of the conventional 180km’s, due to a road works detour in the town of Bad Vilbel. With recent discussions around how fast one could really expect to go in an Ironman indicating that 4:15 was about as good as it would get, Raelert’s 4:20 showed that on the right course and under the right conditions we may one day see someone come in around the 4 hour mark. A straight line adjustment shows that he would have done a 4:13 for 180km’s and this is not even the fastest bike course out there.

Behind defending champion, Timo Bracht, was not about to give up his crown that easily but with a 10 minute deficit heading out onto the run, he would have his work cut out to catch Raelert. Despite posting the fastest run split of the day, a 2:47, it was not enough to catch Raelert who was merely controlling the gap and probably could have gone faster. Third place turned into an Antipodean battle between Chris McCormack and Cameron Brown, with McCormack producing a strong run to take the final podium spot.

Sandra Wallenhorst might have found herself 10 minutes behind early leader Katja Konschak after the swim but she didn’t let that deter her as she put together a solid bike and excellent run to take a well deserved, come from behind, victory.

For most the day, it was Caroline Steffen that looked the likely winner as behind her, Wallenhorst and Yvonne Van Vlerken raced side by side without making any significant inroads into Steffen’s lead. It was only in the later stages of the run that Wallenhorst found the extra gear to drop Van Vlerken and catch Steffen, thereby ensuring a clean sweep of both men’s and women’s titles by the home nation, Germany.

Women

Sandra Wallenhorst (GER) 9:04:27
Caroline Steffen (SWI) 9:06:42
Yvonne Van Vlerken (NED) 9:10:21

Men

Andreas Raelert (GER) 8:05:15
Timo Bracht (GER) 8:10:22
Chris Mccormack (AUS) 8:14:43

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Jun

TriStar111 Germany

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Photo: Johannes Pigge / tristarlive.de

Macca strongest all day

With just a 1km swim, it wasn’t expected to be decisive but the 90 second lead that Chris McCormack and Ailt Priit had coming into T1 proved to be the end of the race for the rest of the men’s field.

While Priit faded on the hilly 100km bike course, McCormack used his strength to consolidate, with only Ain-Alar Juhanson making any inroads into his lead but still entering T2 a minute a down on the former World Champion.

Juhanson was however not going to trouble McCormack on the short 10km run, as he was caught first by Christian Brader and then Jürgen Stilgenbauer. Up front however it was a one man show as McCormack cruised to victory.

Giger crushes the bike course

Nicole Leder led the women’s race out of the water but had no match for the power biking of Michaela Giger whose 2:42 split, gave her a 10 minute lead going into the run, enough to ensure victory over France’s Isabelle Ferrer with Leder in third place.

Women

Michaela Giger (SWI) 3:42:55
Isabelle Ferrer (FRA) 3:49:42
Nicole Leder (GER) 3:54:07

Men

Chris McCormack (AUS) 3:14:23
Christian Brader (GER) 3:16:45
Jürgen Stilgenbauer (GER) 3:17:27

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May

Ironman 70.3 Austria St. Pölten

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yvonne-van-vlerken Csomor and Van Vlerken in sprint finish

The ladies certainly have a flair for producing the kind of drama that brings crowds to their feet and following Catriona Morrison’s efforts of last week, it was the turn of Erika Csomor and Yvonne Van Vlerken as they treated us to a sprint finish in St.Polten.

Eva Dollinger led the women’s field out of water in just over 26 minutes from a group containing Yvonne Van Vlerken, Merja Kiviranta and Heike Funk.

Dollinger was initially able to hold her advantage on the bike course but by halfway it was Swiss Time-Trial star Karin Thurig that had assumed the lead over Van Vlerken on her way to an eventual 2:18 bike split that was easiest the best on the day and rivaled many of the men’s times.

Out of T2 it was first Van Vlerken and then Csomor that passed Thurig but the best was yet to come as Csomor slowly inched her way up to Van Vlerken. With a kilometer to go Csomor pulled up alongside Van Vlerken and the race to the line was on.

Normally it would have been Van Vlerken that would have faded but she dug deep and pulled out an incredible finish as both of them hit the finish line separated by 0.2 seconds. The closest finish in women’s 70.3 racing and reminiscent of Chris Lieto and Craig Alexander’s finish in Boise last year.

Ospaly wins in record time

It has been a season of new records and yet another one fell as Filip Ospaly produced a lightning fast run to defeat former Ironman World Champion, Chris McCormack.

After little known Hungarian, Kuttor Csaba, led the field from the water in 23:42 it was Dirk Bockel that took the early initiative on the bike to open up a lead over Ospaly, Marino Vanhoenacker and 2009 winner Chris McCormack. These three closed the gap and showed they were in control of the race. Ospaly and then Vanhoenacker both took turns in leading with McCormack content to sit back and observe.

Out of T2 it looked as though we were in for a repeat of last years duel as Vanhoenacker and McCormack ran in first and second but that didn’t last long as Filip Ospaly made his charge at the lead. Ospaly’s 68 minute half marathon was too good for the rest as he destroyed the course record by 7 minutes.

McCormack hung in gamely for second but not before being made to filip-ospaly work for it by the fast finishing Andreas Raelert, while Vanhoenacker finished fourth.