70.3 Championships 2017 Chattanooga – Analyzing Results

Female Race

Course Conditions

The conditions were relatively slow across all three legs. The way the swim was into and with currents produced some separation and relatively slow times, and the hilly bike and run courses were also pretty slow, making Chattanooga one of the harder 70.3 Championship courses. It’ll be interesting to see if that trend continues tomorrow for the men’s race. 

Female Race Results

Daniela Ryf put on “a clinic” on the bike. After a swim that was pretty much as expected, she had the fastest bike split by far, putting more than five minutes into Laura Philipp and about seven or eight minutes into the rest of the potential podium contenders. After that she had things under control and didn’t have to show what she was able to do on the run (though she still had the third best run split), winning by almost seven minutes. 

After last year’s champion Holly Lawrence dropped out on the bike (“I just didn’t have it today”), the podium spots were wide open. With Emma Pallant (who ran a race best 1:19 run split) and Laura Philipp (who had the second best bike and run splits) two younger European athletes were able to get their first 70.3 Worlds podiums.

Male Race

Course Conditions

Not surprisingly, the conditions men’s race one day after the female race were about as hard, making the Chattanooga course probably the toughest 70.3 Championship course. The tough swim created gaps that had an impact on how the race developed (rather than being closed in the first few miles)- Sebi’s slower swim forced him to ride harder than he probably would have liked  to make up the gap to the main group on the bike. 

Male Race Results

Ben Kanute was leading the race for most of the time, after the fastest swim (together with Javier Gomez), he also put out a huge effort on the bike, posting the second fastest bike split of the day, reaching T2 with a gap of four minutes to the rest of the field. It was clear that he would lose time on the run, but only Javier Gomez was able to catch him – Javier’s race best 1:10 run split allowed him to win his second 70.3 World Championship title. Ben held on for second place, and Tim Don had the second best run of the chase group, his 1:13 gave him a 90 second advantage on Sam Appleton. Fifth place went to Sebastian Kienle who had the best bike split of the day and entered T2 in second place, but then didn’t have the running legs to reclaim his 2012/13 title.