July 2019

Course Conditions

Compared to other years, 2019 was a slot year for Roth: A non-wetsuit swim for the Pros (very unusual for Roth) and wet roads after some light rain in the morning led to times roughly 6 minutes slower than last year.

Male Race Results

Jesper Svensson was the fastest swimmer, but a “group of three Andi/Andys” was lighting up the slippery bike course – not even allowing uber-biker Cameron Wurf to catch up to them. On the run, both Andy Potts and Andi Böcherer fell back, but Andi Dreitz had a great 2:51 marathon that allowed him to post the only sub-8 finish of the day and to take the win by three minutes.

Photo Credit: Ingo Kutsche

Jesper Svensson had the fastest swim of the day and fell back a bit on the bike, but then was able to move back into second place with a 2:48 marathon. Third place went to Cameron Wurf who posted a new run PB – his 2:50 marathon was 11 minutes quicker than last year and allowed him to hold the place he had in T2.

Female Race Results

On the female side, it was Lucy Charles who had an all-around good day, posting the fastest swim (of course!) and also the fastest run – er 2:59 was her first sub-3 marathon in a full-distance race. (She was ten seconds quicker at the shortened-swim IM South Africa earlier this year.) She was delighted to claim the top spot this year after finishing second last year.

Photo Credit: Ingo Kutsche

Sarah Crowley was losing time to Lucy in all three legs but was able to claim a solid second, posting a new personal best overall and on the marathon and claiming second place. Just a week after her DNF in Frankfurt, Daniela Bleymehl also posted a new PR (15 seconds quicker than last year’s winning time in Roth). She was working hard on the second loop of the bike to make up time to the Lucy and maybe put some ground between her and the stronger runners in her group. A solid 3:06 marathon saw her finish on the final podium spot.

Based on my seedings for Roth, I discuss the chances of the main athletes and how this year’s race for the Roth titles might develop.

Female Race

Here’s a look at some of the athletes in the female race:

• Similar to last year, Lucy Charles will be in the lead for most of the time. She should have a lead of about five minutes after the swim, and that lead should be pretty much unchanged for the rest of the day. Will she be able to take the win in Roth this year?
• Behind Lucy, there are (at least) two strong bike riders: Sarah Crowley and Anja Ippach. It’ll be interesting to see if they will be able to eat into Lucy’s lead on the bike and also on the run. On the run, Sarah is the strongest based on previous results, but based on paper she should be able to take back more than a few minutes from Lucy. But I also didn’t expect anyone to challenge Lucy in last year’s race …
• There are some more solid swim/bikers in the race: Rachel McBride, Carolin Lehrieder and Els Visser might join the main chasers on the bike after a good swim. But all of them would also need a breakthrough run to be able to contend for a podium slot.
• The best runner in the field is probably Lisa Roberts, she could run well under three hours. But typically she is far behind the action after the swim and bike, probably around 30 minutes behind Lucy in T2. But you can expect Lisa to run through the field and when other athletes struggle, maybe even put herself into podium contention late in the run.

Update July 5th: Defending champion Daniela Bleymehl has announced that she will also start Roth 2019. Expect her to swim and bike at a similar level to Sarah Crowley and Anja Ippach before it’ll probably come down to who’s going to have the best run legs.

Male Race

As is typical, the men’s race in Roth is expected to be a lot tighter.

Here’s an overview of what might happen:

• With the number of athletes, the swim in Roth doesn’t break up quite as much as other, tougher swims. So even though on paper there are around four minutes between the fastest swimmer (probably Jesper Svensson) and Cam Wurf, the gaps might be a lot smaller or Cam (with an improved swim) might even be able to stay with the front group as he was able to last year.
• With the hot temperatures in Germany and some issues with the close-by lock (that usually mixes in some cold ground water into the canal), the swim is likely going to be non-wetsuit – typically favoring the stronger swimmers.
• On the bike, there are three athletes that are nominally a good deal faster than the rest of the field: Andi Böcherer, Andi Dreitz and Cam Wurf should build a gap of almost ten minutes to the rest of the field. Tactics will play a role whether there’s going to be a lead group (and for how long), if everyone will be riding on their own or if someone else decides to go with the front group.
• Among these three, Andi Böcherer should be the strongest runner, and I expect him to run well under 2:50 in Roth. But Andi Dreitz and especially Cam Wurf will want to show that their Ironman marathon has improved since last year: Andi D ran a 2:50 to take second place, Cam’s 3:01 saw him drop back into fifth place after leading in T2.
• The stronger runners in the field will have to work hard on the bike in order to keep the gap to the front in manageable dimensions. It’ll take a huge effort even by strong runners such as Braden Currie, Bart Aernouts or David McNamee to put much more than five minutes into Andi B, but even when they are ten minutes back in T2 they’ll still be in the mix for a top finish. Expect some late changes in the podium ranks!