Race Conditions
Conditions on race day seemed to be pretty normal for CdA – a race adjustment of 2:34 leads to a new course rating of 3:36.
Male Results
Victor Zyemtsev took control of the race on the bike, leading into T2 and then posting the fastest run as well:
Rank Name Nation Swim Bike Run Actual Time Expected Time 1 Victor Zyemtsev USA 00:51:56 04:47:55 02:49:37 08:32:29 08:38:15 2 Timothy O’Donnell USA 00:49:20 04:56:22 02:52:59 08:41:36 08:43:46 3 Matthew Russell USA 01:06:23 04:48:52 02:53:41 08:52:00 09:02:48 4 Kevin Taddonio USA 01:05:32 04:47:10 02:59:45 08:55:48 08:56:35 5 Anton Blokhin UKR 00:51:28 04:53:11 03:12:05 08:59:49 08:56:08 6 Joel Jameson GBR 01:01:36 05:05:37 02:59:26 09:09:52 09:03:44 7 Ian Mikelson USA 00:53:56 05:09:07 03:05:50 09:13:03 09:04:53 8 Bryan Rhodes NZL 00:49:13 05:06:04 03:21:10 09:20:27 09:11:23 9 Chris Boudreaux 00:56:01 05:17:19 03:05:50 09:23:10 09:31:40 10 Brendan Halpin USA 01:03:20 05:05:13 03:18:06 09:30:04 09:26:29 11 Guy Crawford AUS 00:51:28 04:50:17 04:02:10 09:47:12 09:09:55 12 Blake Becker USA 00:55:59 05:42:09 04:50:06 11:33:03 09:53:47 13 Lewis Elliot USA 00:56:06 04:58:38 06:18:50 12:17:14 09:32:10
Tim O’Donnell had a solid race, moving into the second spot early in the run, and validating his Kona spot. Behind him there was quite some back and forth for the third podium spot on the run: At different points, Guy Crawford, Anton Blokhin and Kevin Taddonio held that spot, but in the end it was taken by Matthew Russell.
Female Results
On the female side, Meredith Kessler posted the fastest splits across the board:
Rank Name Nation Swim Bike Run Actual Time Expected Time 1 Meredith Kessler USA 00:51:53 05:13:16 03:12:04 09:21:44 09:33:44 2 Haley Cooper-Scott USA 01:06:02 05:27:40 03:24:31 10:01:25 10:12:42 3 Whitney Garcia USA 01:01:56 05:32:47 03:20:18 10:01:46 09:58:48 4 Rachel Kiers CAN 01:01:39 05:39:13 03:31:41 10:16:19 10:14:40 5 Beth Shutt USA 01:03:27 05:37:41 03:37:21 10:22:16 n/a 6 Stephanie Ossenbrink CAN 01:01:42 05:30:14 03:48:53 10:24:44 n/a 7 Trish Deim USA 01:06:50 05:36:04 03:45:59 10:34:32 n/a 8 Amanda McKenzie AUS 01:05:55 06:11:01 04:00:33 11:22:40 11:04:32
The story that’s missing from the results is the drama around the disqualification of Heather Wurtele. She was leading the race together with MBK when the crank fell off her bike. Christie Sym (who apparently had DNF’d) then gave Heather her bike to finish the bike leg “BMX style” (Heather is 6’2”, and Christie’s bike was a 51cm – I’d love to see a photo). This seems to be in conflict with a USATA rule that forward progress on the bike leg has to be done with your bike at all times and it was decided she’d be DQ’d. She was not allowed to finish the race and contest the DQ afterwards. I hope that she’ll be able to regroup, validate her Kona spot in another IM race pretty soon and is going to have a strong Kona race.