As per usual, you can find additional information on the participants in the detail post.
Previous Results
Austria is one of the quickest courses. It’s the fastest of the “official” Ironman courses (with several sub-8 times posted by Marino Vanhoenacker and at least one “world-record” by Sandra Wallenhorst). It has a course rating of 16:10, only Challenge Roth (19:03) is quicker (by almost 3 minutes).
Last years’s race was won by Marino Vanhoenacker in 7:52 and Eva Dollinger in 9:18.
Male Participants
Marino is always racing Austria, and he always posts great results, so it’s not surprise he’s the favorite for this race:
Rank Name Nation Expected Time Rating Rank 1 Marino Vanhoenacker BEL 08:02:55 08:21:59 3 2 Tom Lowe GBR 08:04:45 08:23:54 5 3 Michael Weiss AUT 08:18:18 08:37:59 18 4 Jozsef Major HUN 08:28:54 08:49:00 60 5 Stephen Bayliss GBR 08:30:33 08:50:43 70 6 Georg Swoboda AUT 08:31:16 08:51:28 76 7 Jose Luis Villanueva ESP 08:35:28 08:55:49 91 8 Anton Blokhin UKR 08:42:32 09:03:10 128 9 Dominik Berger AUT 08:43:27 09:04:07 133 10 Ernst Moser AUT 08:46:41 09:07:29 144 11 Max Renko Aus 08:48:09 09:09:00 150 12 Markus Ressler AUT 08:49:23 09:10:17 158 13 Balazs Csoke HUN 08:51:49 09:12:49 177 14 Sebastian Pedraza ITA 08:52:48 09:13:51 182 15 Paul Westwood NZL 08:58:24 09:19:40 236 16 Markus Strini AUT 08:59:03 09:20:20 240 17 Lukas Vrobel CZE 09:00:38 09:21:59 253 18 Andreas Wolpert GER 09:00:39 09:22:00 254 19 Toby Radcliffe GBR 09:03:18 09:24:45 275 20 Markus Mlinar AUT 09:18:41 09:40:45 379 21 Marcel Bischof GER 09:21:04 09:43:14 391 22 Heinrich Sickl AUT 09:24:06 09:46:23 413 23 Stefano Paoli ITA 09:27:31 09:49:56 432 24 Sandi Ivancic SLO 09:27:31 09:49:56 432 25 Matjaz Kovac SVN 09:34:49 09:57:31 480 26 Jerzy Kasemier NLD 09:36:38 09:59:24 490 27 Gergely Nagy HUN 10:12:05 10:36:15 667 28 Marek Nemcik SVK 11:49:20 12:17:21 790 29 Jules Hatcher GBR n/a unrated n/a 30 Michal Kulich SVK n/a unrated n/a 31 Dorian Wagner GER n/a unrated n/a 32 Marco Albert EST n/a unrated n/a 33 Flo Kriegl AUT n/a unrated n/a
However, he has had a few DNFs, although I’m not aware of any injuries. Next on the list is Tom Lowe who has just one result to his credit (a great time in IM Arizona). He was injured for the first race he was on the start list (IM South Africa), I hope he’s back on form and can continue a stellar IM career. Michael Weiss’s last IM race was also a DNF while defending his title at IM St. George. Unless there is a major upset, I’m pretty sure that the winner will come from these three athletes. Austria is paying price money up to 8th place, and there are a lot of athletes that will race for these spots.
Female Participants
Even though last year’s winner Eve Dollinger is back at the race, she is not the favorite:
Rank Name Nation Expected Time Rating Rank 1 Erika Csomor HUN 09:15:12 09:37:08 22 2 Heleen Bij De Vaate NLD 09:21:29 09:43:39 40 3 Edith Niederfringer ITA 09:27:35 09:50:00 52 4 Eva Dollinger AUT 09:30:36 09:53:08 58 5 Fernanda Keller BRA 09:49:42 10:12:59 119 6 Barbara Tesar AUT 09:49:47 10:13:05 120 7 Kristin Lie NOR 09:53:02 10:16:27 128 8 Nicole Woysch GER 10:07:22 10:31:21 171 9 Monika Stadlmann AUT 10:25:13 10:49:55 209 10 Svetlana Blazevic SCG 10:37:27 11:02:38 234 11 Joyce Wolfe IRL n/a unrated n/a 12 Anja Ippach GER n/a unrated n/a 13 Simone Helfenschneider-Ofner AUT n/a unrated n/a
Erica Csomor, Heleen Bij De Vaate and Edith Niederfringer will be strong contenders fro the win!