Race

At this point, the list is not final yet: Pro athletes have until April 16th to register for the race.

Last Updated: March 21st

• March 21st: Added Michelle Gailey, Jessica Richards, Laura Siddall, Karen Thibodeau, David Dellow, Clayton Fettell, and Michael Fox

Male Race Participants

Female Race Participants

Race Conditions

This year was probably one of the slowest conditions for Taupo: An adjustment of -4:08 indicates a ten minute difference to last years record breaking conditions. Consequently, times were quite a bit slower across the board, for example the fastest bike splits were 15 minutes slower than last year. It’s no surprise that these conditions did not allow any new course records!

Male Race Results

For a long time it looked as if Terenzo Bozzone was repeating his sub-8 Western Australia performance, quickly building a lead on the bike. But towards T2 he ran out of steam and Braden Currie – second at CoastToCoast just three weeks ago –  started the run just two minutes behind him. Terenzo’s 3:03 marathon saw him fall back to 6th place in the end, while Braden had the best marathon of the chasers and won the race with a comfortable margin.

Cam Brown was 9th into T2 about 11 minutes behind the lead – pretty much the end of his hopes of defending his Taupo title. Nonetheless he gave it his best on the run, posting the fastest run split of the day (and his best marathon time in Taupo!) with a 2:42, running all the way into second place. Third place went to Cyril Viennot, the second best marathon (just 1:10 slower than Cam) allowed him to run through the field as well.

2014 winner Marko Albert was near the front for most of the day, but even though he ran what is for him a good 2:56 marathon, he couldn’t match the faster runners and eventually fell back to fourth place. Mark Bowstead was solid across the board and finished fifth.

Pre-race favorite Marino Vanhoenacker didn’t have a good day: Usually one of the strongest bike riders, he could barely stay with the group he was riding with after the swim and was disappointed to end his race after the first loop of the bike.

Female Race Results

As usual, Meredith Kessler was leading the race after the swim, but Annabel Luxford was just two seconds behind. Meredith couldn’t shake Annabel on the bike either. Behind them, a chase group consisting of Yvonne Van Vlerken, Laura Siddall and Jocelyn McCauley was initially about six minutes behind the leaders, but they slowly closed the gap, and all five entered T2 within seconds.

Meredith again tried to take control of the race early in the run, but never managed to built a lead of more than 30 seconds to her chasers. Around the half-marathon mark Jocelyn went to the front and quickly built a lead of more than five minutes. In the end Jocelyn had the fastest marathon of the day, her 2:59:40 is the first female sub-3 marathon of the year and only 30 seconds off the 2004 course record by Jess Draskau-Petersson.

Behind Jocelyn Laura had the best-paced marathon, when the others started to struggle she was able to continue to run well and move up into second place. On what was probably a sub-par day for her, Meredith continued to fight hard, earning the last spot on the podium.  Annabel continues to work on her IM marathon, after being close to the lead for most of the day her 3:32 run meant she finished in fourth place. Yvonne Van Vlerken had problems with her nutrition and was stung by a bee, she ended her day at the half marathon mark. Emma Bilham and Alysssa Godesky – both backing up after Challenge Wanaka – finished in fifth and sixth.

Kona Qualifying Implications

On the male side, none of the top finishers have been able to secure Kona slots, here are those that are now close but still short of the projected cutoff of 3.500 points:

• Braden Currie 2.750
• Marko Albert 2.580
• Cyril Viennot 2.420

Terenzo Bozzone was already safe before Taupo, with 6.225 he’s the top athlete who has already validated his slot with a non-Kona finish.

On the female side, the top finishers are just around the projected cutoff of 4.300 points:

• Laura Siddall 4.360
• Meredith Kessler 4.265
• Jocelyn McCauley 4.000
• Annabel Luxford 3.480

All of them will likely need a few more points, but except for Jocelyn that would probably mean they have to do another IM race to qualify .. or hope until the final races that not too many other will overtake them. Tough decisions ahead!

Last updated: March 21st

Change Log:

• March 26th: Removed Michael Weiss – after crashing in Campeche and breaking his collarbone he won’t be able to race Texas
• March 21st: Added Haley Chura, Erin Green, Michaela Herlbauer, Kirsty Jahn, Tyler Butterfield, Will Clarke, Karl-Johan Danielsson, Daniel Fontana, Philipp Koutny, and Jonathan Shearon
• March 10th: Added  Antony Costes, Leon Griffin, Peter Kotland, Paul Matthews, Tomas Mika, Callum Millward, Matic Modic, Timothy Nichols, Jens Petersen-Bach, Jordan Rapp, Ivan Tutukin, Shiao-yu Li, Nicole Luse and Ashley Paulson

Male Race Participants

Female Race Participants

Male Race Participants

Female Race Participants

Race Conditions

Last year’s race in Wanaka saw some strong winds, even leading to a few crashes on the bike. This year’s conditions were very calm, with the adjustment of 3:35 being the quickest in the last years, roughly 14 minutes faster than last year. (The new course rating is -5:01.)

Both race winners, Dougal Allan and Yvonne Van Vlerken, posted new course records, beating times from 2010 (Richard Ussher on the male side) and 2013 (Gina Crawford for the females). Dougal also posted a new bike record (4:27, improving his own time from two years ago by three minutes), and while Yvonne was under the old bike record, Laura Siddall was even a few seconds quicker – her 4:58 was almost ten minutes faster than Gina Crawford’s time from 2013.

Male Race Results

Mike Phillips was not a name frequently mentioned as a contender, but he was leading the race after the swim and in the front bike group with the two Lukes (Bell and McKenzie) and Dougal Allan. At 135k Dougal put down the hammer and by T2 built a lead of three minutes. He also proved to be the fastest runner, steadily increasing his lead and winning in course record time. Mike finished in second, keeping the distance at just under six minutes. Luke Bell was more than fifteen minutes back in third, but as he said on Twitter “at least I beat the NZ boys to popping the cork!”

Female Race Results

This year’s race was very similar to last year – Yvonne and Laura were within a few seconds for the whole day, frequently trading the lead. It was very late in the run until Yvonne built a two-minute lead, and she stared her 2017 season with a win. Laura almost closed the gap towards the end – it’s the third time she fought a hard battle with Yvonne in the last two seasons (Wanaka 2016 – 3:29, Roth 2016 – 2:24, and now Wanaka 2017 0:27).

It just seems to  be a question of time until she’s able to get her first big win on the IM distance – maybe in their rematch in two weeks at New Zealand? At 70.3 Taupo in December she showed that she’s not afraid to mix it up with five-time IM New Zealand champion Meredith Kessler as well.

Third place went to Emma Bilham who was leading after the swim and had the fastest run of the day, but lost too much time on the bike to contend for more than the podium.

Photos by Phil Walter/Getty Images, Copyright Getty Images, 2017